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The light of the real Gospel exposes all darkness. It shines upon all who lurk in the shadows of sin. It reveals every hidden enemy of the Lord Jesus to those with eyes to see.

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We live in a time of veiled opposition. Most people are completely unaware of the spiritual warfare raging all around them. There are times when this warfare flashes into the open. It happens whenever the real Gospel is properly presented by the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit. This is when sinners are exposed. Their sin becomes known to them. Many blessedly surrender unto salvation. When this happens on a large scale, Great Awakenings break forth. The kingdom of the Lord expands and advances.

Parallel to this, the unrepentant enemies of the Lord are also exposed, often by their own hateful and rapid reactionary response which they most often cannot manage. We call this triggering or getting triggered. It often takes place in people with low or no impulse control. A stimulus causes a reflex. Something sets them off.

That something is the truth of the Gospel. More so, it is the truth of the real identity of the Lord Jesus. When His real identity is veiled, obscured, watered-down, or removed, there is little reaction. His enemies are pacified. But when the real Gospel is brought forth and His real identity, authority, and presence are fully noted, His enemies suddenly become extremely upset and angry. They are instantly inflated with antagonism and rapidly rise up to fight. The more resentful they are the more reactionary they become. The more antichrist they are, the more they agitate.

It never changes. When the real Gospel is preached as it was in the beginning it happens. When the Lord Jesus is lifted up for who He really is it always occurs. His enemies cannot contain themselves. Their bitterness and hatred will not allow them to. They must fight back to defend their false paradigm and faulty construct to which they have dedicated their lives and in which they are fully invested.

THE EARLY CHURCH IN ACTS

The real time demonstration of this dynamic is entirely clear as plainly illustrated by the following compelling events from the Book of Acts, captured brilliantly by Luke. Many Christians are not aware of these passages and many others rebuff them as irrelevant and even inappropriate. Others are embarrassed and discomfited, as the Scriptural record does not fit their religious and cultural narratives.

Though listed here as highlighted sections in a chronological format, I encourage everyone to also read these passages in full context and thereby gain even greater insight into the genuine outworking of the original Gospel presentation, why it applies to the present, and how it exposes the antichrist spirit. We are blessed to have this historical documentation.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. [Romans 1:16]

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THE HISTORICAL RECORD

But Saul kept increasing in strength and confounding the Jews who lived at Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ. When many days had elapsed, the Jews plotted together to do away with him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were also watching the gates day and night so that they might put him to death; but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a large basket. [Acts 9:22-25]

And he was with them, moving about freely in Jerusalem, speaking out boldly in the name of the Lord. And he was talking and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews; but they were attempting to put him to death. [Acts 9:28-29]

“You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. We are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross.” [Acts 10:38-39]

Now about that time Herod the king laid hands on some who belonged to the church in order to mistreat them. And he had James the brother of John put to death with a sword. When he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. Now it was during the days of Unleavened Bread. [Acts 12:1-3]

When they reached Salamis, they began to proclaim the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews; and they also had John as their helper. When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they found a magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus, who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. But Elymas the magician (for so his name is translated) was opposing them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. [Acts 13:5-8]

The next Sabbath nearly the whole city assembled to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul, and were blaspheming. Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, ‘I HAVE PLACED YOU AS A LIGHT FOR THE GENTILES, THAT YOU MAY BRING SALVATION TO THE END OF THE EARTH.’” When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was being spread through the whole region. But the Jews incited the devout women of prominence and the leading men of the city, and instigated a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. But they shook off the dust of their feet in protest against them and went to Iconium. And the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. [Acts 13:44-52]

In Iconium they entered the synagogue of the Jews together, and spoke in such a manner that a large number of people believed, both of Jews and of Greeks. But the Jews who disbelieved stirred up the minds of the Gentiles and embittered them against the brethren. Therefore they spent a long time there speaking boldly with reliance upon the Lord, who was testifying to the word of His grace, granting that signs and wonders be done by their hands. But the people of the city were divided; and some sided with the Jews, and some with the apostles. And when an attempt was made by both the Gentiles and the Jews with their rulers, to mistreat and to stone them, they became aware of it and fled to the cities of Lycaonia, Lystra and Derbe, and the surrounding region; and there they continued to preach the gospel. [Acts 14:1-7]

But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. But while the disciples stood around him, he got up and entered the city. The next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe. [Acts 14:19-20]

But the Jews, becoming jealous and taking along some wicked men from the market place, formed a mob and set the city in an uproar; and attacking the house of Jason, they were seeking to bring them out to the people. When they did not find them, they began dragging Jason and some brethren before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have upset the world have come here also; and Jason has welcomed them, and they all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” They stirred up the crowd and the city authorities who heard these things. And when they had received a pledge from Jason and the others, they released them. [Acts 17:5-9]

But when the Jews of Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Berea also, they came there as well, agitating and stirring up the crowds. Then immediately the brethren sent Paul out to go as far as the sea; and Silas and Timothy remained there. [Acts 17:13-14]

And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” Then he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue. [Acts 18:4-7]

But while Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one accord rose up against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat, saying, “This man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.” But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of wrong or of vicious crime, O Jews, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you; but if there are questions about words and names and your own law, look after it yourselves; I am unwilling to be a judge of these matters.” And he drove them away from the judgment seat. And they all took hold of Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and began beating him in front of the judgment seat. But Gallio was not concerned about any of these things. [Acts 18:12-17]

After the uproar had ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and when he had exhorted them and taken his leave of them, he left to go to Macedonia. When he had gone through those districts and had given them much exhortation, he came to Greece. And there he spent three months, and when a plot was formed against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. [Acts 20:1-3]

From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church. And when they had come to him, he said to them, “You yourselves know, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I was with you the whole time, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials which came upon me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. [Acts 20:17-21]

As we were staying there for some days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. And coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands, and said, “This is what the Holy Spirit says: ‘In this way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’” When we had heard this, we as well as the local residents began begging him not to go up to Jerusalem. [Acts 21:10-12]

Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purifying himself along with them, went into the temple giving notice of the completion of the days of purification, until the sacrifice was offered for each one of them. When the seven days were almost over, the Jews from Asia, upon seeing him in the temple, began to stir up all the crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, “Men of Israel, come to our aid! This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people and the Law and this place; and besides he has even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.” For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. Then all the city was provoked, and the people rushed together, and taking hold of Paul they dragged him out of the temple, and immediately the doors were shut. While they were seeking to kill him, a report came up to the commander of the Roman cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. [Acts 21:26-31]

But on the next day, wishing to know for certain why he had been accused by the Jews, he released him and ordered the chief priests and all the Council to assemble, and brought Paul down and set him before them. Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, “Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day.” The high priest Ananias commanded those standing beside him to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Do you sit to try me according to the Law, and in violation of the Law order me to be struck?” [Acts 22:30 – 23:3]

And as a great dissension was developing, the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them and ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force, and bring him into the barracks. But on the night immediately following, the Lord stood at his side and said, “Take courage; for as you have solemnly witnessed to My cause at Jerusalem, so you must witness at Rome also.” When it was day, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves under an oath, saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul. There were more than forty who formed this plot. They came to the chief priests and the elders and said, “We have bound ourselves under a solemn oath to taste nothing until we have killed Paul. Now therefore, you and the Council notify the commander to bring him down to you, as though you were going to determine his case by a more thorough investigation; and we for our part are ready to slay him before he comes near the place.”

But the son of Paul’s sister heard of their ambush, and he came and entered the barracks and told Paul. Paul called one of the centurions to him and said, “Lead this young man to the commander, for he has something to report to him.” So he took him and led him to the commander and said, “Paul the prisoner called me to him and asked me to lead this young man to you since he has something to tell you.” The commander took him by the hand and stepping aside, began to inquire of him privately, “What is it that you have to report to me?” And he said, “The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down tomorrow to the Council, as though they were going to inquire somewhat more thoroughly about him. So do not listen to them, for more than forty of them are lying in wait for him who have bound themselves under a curse not to eat or drink until they slay him; and now they are ready and waiting for the promise from you.” So the commander let the young man go, instructing him, “Tell no one that you have notified me of these things.” And he called to him two of the centurions and said, “Get two hundred soldiers ready by the third hour of the night to proceed to Caesarea, with seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen.” They were also to provide mounts to put Paul on and bring him safely to Felix the governor. [Acts 23:10-13]

After five days the high priest Ananias came down with some elders, with an attorney named Tertullus, and they brought charges to the governor against Paul. After Paul had been summoned, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying to the governor, “Since we have through you attained much peace, and since by your providence reforms are being carried out for this nation, we acknowledge this in every way and everywhere, most excellent Felix, with all thankfulness. But, that I may not weary you any further, I beg you to grant us, by your kindness, a brief hearing. For we have found this man a real pest and a fellow who stirs up dissension among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. And he even tried to desecrate the temple; and then we arrested him. We wanted to judge him according to our own Law. But Lysias the commander came along, and with much violence took him out of our hands, ordering his accusers to come before you. By examining him yourself concerning all these matters you will be able to ascertain the things of which we accuse him.” The Jews also joined in the attack, asserting that these things were so. [Acts 24:1-9]

Festus then, having arrived in the province, three days later went up to Jerusalem from Caesarea. And the chief priests and the leading men of the Jews brought charges against Paul, and they were urging him, requesting a concession against Paul, that he might have him brought to Jerusalem (at the same time, setting an ambush to kill him on the way). Festus then answered that Paul was being kept in custody at Caesarea and that he himself was about to leave shortly. [Acts 25:1-4]

After he had spent not more than eight or ten days among them, he went down to Caesarea, and on the next day he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered Paul to be brought. After Paul arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing many and serious charges against him which they could not prove, while Paul said in his own defense, “I have committed no offense either against the Law of the Jews or against the temple or against Caesar.” But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, answered Paul and said, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and stand trial before me on these charges?” But Paul said, “I am standing before Caesar’s tribunal, where I ought to be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you also very well know. If, then, I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die; but if none of those things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar.” Then when Festus had conferred with his council, he answered, “You have appealed to Caesar, to Caesar you shall go.” [Acts 25:6-12]

So, King Agrippa, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision, but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance. For this reason some Jews seized me in the temple and tried to put me to death. So, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the Prophets and Moses said was going to take place; that the Christ was to suffer, and that by reason of His resurrection from the dead He would be the first to proclaim light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles.” [Acts 26:19-23]

When they had set a day for Paul, they came to him at his lodging in large numbers; and he was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade them concerning Jesus, from both the Law of Moses and from the Prophets, from morning until evening. Some were being persuaded by the things spoken, but others would not believe. And when they did not agree with one another, they began leaving after Paul had spoken one parting word, “The Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers, saying, ‘GO TO THIS PEOPLE AND SAY, “YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; AND YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE; FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, AND WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES; OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT SEE WITH THEIR EYES, AND HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.”’ Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will also listen.” When he had spoken these words, the Jews departed, having a great dispute among themselves.

And he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered. [Acts 28:23-31] [1]

What would happen in any of our hallowed church services if someone in the congregation stood up and started heckling the preacher in the name of “correcting” him?

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Everywhere the Lord went during His ministry He enjoyed support and success, and the joy of knowing He was making a difference in the lives of those He loved.

Then the hecklers showed up. They couldn’t help themselves. They lived to confront Him, question Him, tell Him He was wrong about everything, complain about Him, call Him names, call His mother names, and generally be ongoing everlasting pests that dogged Him without end.

They were never satisfied. Every correct answer He gave was never good enough. For the most part He stayed calm and collected, knowing He was dealing with dimwits. They never cared so much about all the good He was doing or could do, but only that He wasn’t doing it their way. He wasn’t teaching their way. He wasn’t teaching what they taught (and thank goodness for that). He didn’t buy in to all their religious stuff. He wasn’t into getting rich off the ministry or turning it into a job. He didn’t care so much about making a name for Himself, so to speak, or standing up for His honor and His character. He knew He was only passing through and that most would reject Him. In that process, He strove to find the few who appreciated Him and were open to His ministry. He came to help but was often treated really bad by incessant detractors.

There were times when He had to be strong and tell ‘em off. His many rebukathons are never heard in most churches and ministries today. Many ministers wish these powerful and strong words of His that make many nominal believers (themselves included) so uncomfortable, had never been recorded. Such words don’t sound very loving. Though the Lord Jesus IS Love and no one could possibly be more loving, many Christians believe He didn’t sound so loving at all when He ripped the Pharisees and their associated ilk to the core of their being.

HIPPIES IN LEISURE SUITS

Some churches and ministry organizations have effectively eliminated all things discipleship. They don’t want to mention anything even closely resembling spiritual warfare, hardship, or suffering. Everything is all bright and peachy keen and rainbows and lollipops and many of these people look and act like hippies in leisure suits. These people love everyone who believes exactly as they do.

“Um, the Lord was crucified. It was a bloody, violent death. All of the original twelve, except apparently, John, died the violent bloody deaths of martyrs. Paul had his head cut off. So did James. So did John the Immerser. Anything like that ever happen around here?”

Such hate portends the presence of a very violent enemy who will stop at nothing. When given the chance this enemy will kill every real Christian he possibly can. Millions of real Christians have died such a death. They all stood tall. They are all great heroes. Though you rarely hear about it in churches and most ministries, not to mention, obviously the main stream media, real Christians are presently undergoing severe persecution all over the planet and have been for a long time, especially in places like China where they are having a major impact.

In America, we don’t see this. It is because American Christianity in general is not much of a threat. It is also because we have laws against it. It is because America is the one country in the world that has the highest level of religious freedom written into its founding Constitution. This does not mean there will not be persecution. This does not mean there is not persecution. It only means the persecution comes in a different form. The persecution still comes to the greatest extent that it can and the perpetrators thereof certainly wish they could do much more, as was done to the originals. But alas, the enemies of the Lord are restricted by freedom principles established by our founders and the great American patriots of that time. No other country ever had such great ones and that’s why no other country has our freedoms, especially the freedom to serve the Lord Jesus the way he has called us to do.

DEFINING GREATNESS

I have an internet friend. His name is Bill. He has a disease that leaves him bound in a wheelchair unable to move or even talk. But he has a blog. He has had it for years. He says what he wants to say. Even though his body almost doesn’t work at all he still manages to speak his heart and lift up the name of Jesus. He would probably wish I would shut up about Him but I appreciate him and see him as a very great man. He is a hero. He has effectively said, “Fine. My health is pretty much gone. But I’m still here. AND I AM GOING TO DO WHAT THE LORD HAS CALLED ME TO DO REGARDLESS.” The enemy will never stop him. Ever.

Many of us have suffered greatly and suffered great losses. But we go on. We see what happened to the Lord. We see what they did to all the early believers. We see how real Christians are persecuted all the live long day by those who insist on perpetrating suffering to uphold their own beliefs and traditions. Because we have laws in America, all these people can do for the most part is bring insults and attempt to destroy one’s name and character.

I have another internet friend. Her name is Kat. She is one of those stalwart ones who preach against abortion, including right out on the sidewalks in front of abortion mills. It is her life. The Lord called her to it. She knows many more have been called but most don’t go. It is too hard. They don’t want the hassle. She works extremely hard and is very dedicated. You probably don’t want to know about all the insults and threats she and her associates have suffered. It is pretty much ongoing. She has effectively said, “Abortion is a great evil. It must end. Babies must be saved. AND I AM GOING TO DO WHAT THE LORD HAS CALLED ME TO DO REGARDLESS.” The enemy will never stop her. Ever.

THE REAL GOSPEL

We know by the Lord’s example what we must do. As Christians we are all called to help Him save the lost. The mature are all specialists by gifting according to the Romans 12 model. Those of us who have been at it a long time have been slandered and reviled, and this never stops. Most people are never a problem. Even non-believers can be quite friendly and charming, and even supportive. There will always be some unbelievers, however, who are quick to strike out and show the hatred in their hearts. But most don’t do this. Those who do are miffed because their beliefs get challenged.

Well, that’s pretty much what the real Gospel does. It challenges beliefs. When the real Gospel comes to town all the little imps come out of their hovels and start throwing hissy fits. They get their panties in a wad. These are those who have bought into something contrary to the Gospel and do not appreciate being told they have been deceived. The real Gospel thus causes powerful reactions. For one person, it is Good News that sets him or her free and makes life abundant and joyous. For another, it is heresy, and strange and weird and off-putting and evil. One accepts it with open arms and another rejects it with a passion.

Regarding the Lord’s Gospel preaching method (since He created the Gospel), the following are two differing approaches depending on the audience:

THAT DOESN’T SOUND SO LOVING

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” [Matthew 23:23-28]

BUT DIDN’T YOU JUST SAY…?

“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” [Luke 6:27-36]

CORRECT SPIRITUAL BEHAVIOR

From these passages we know there will be designated hecklers and that they must be loved. The Lord taught this. No other curriculum teaches this. Most people think it is impossible to bridge such a contrary gap. The chasm is too wide. You can’t get there from here. Paul wrote:

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. [Romans 12:9-14] [1]

On the one hand the Lord’s enemies were always coming after Him with a passion with a firm belief that their job was to heckle Him always to prove themselves right and Him wrong. Otherwise they knew they would lose. They had to defend their enterprise, their chosen belief system, and their hand-picked “facts.” On the other hand the Lord said to love them, something no one can really do except with His help. The fact that He loved them did not stop Him from telling them off. But a word of caution here: It is relatively easy to tell someone off. It is not so easy to turn the other cheek. What this means is that the more the designated hecklers come after those they insist are wrong, the more they will be subjected to the same treatment in some form or another from someone or something else. The Lord was strong enough to take it and thus was both strong enough and qualified to dish it out when necessary. (Plus, He was never wrong.)

The designated hecklers are not lovers because if they were lovers they would not be heckling. What the Lord did during His rebukathons was not heckling. It was telling the truth about their real motivation for the sake of illustrating correct spiritual behavior. But it cost Him. He knew it would cost Him. Loving them was what kept Him from feeling otherwise about them, and that is the lesson.

Engaging the enemy to advance one’s present cause will demand eventual future payment, and the latter will be much greater than the former.

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Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, “What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they planned together to kill Him. [John 11:47-53]

They knew they could never get the job done on their own. They were not powerful enough. They knew they must actually engage their avowed enemy in order to kill their greatest enemy. It was at the preceding meeting when a conspiracy of much greater comport was brought forth. They had conspired before on several occasions. They had gotten together in their secret, grungy little hideaways and poured over the possibilities of how they might do Him in but it always came to no avail. They failed on every previous occasion.

But when they at last decided on the most diabolical trick of all, to engage the Roman Empire in their sad little conspiracy, they were on the road to success. In common parlance this is called “selling one’s soul to the devil.” We know this is done. There is certainly a devil and he will certainly work to advance the cause of those who want the same things he wants, and it doesn’t matter if they like him or worship him or not. He knows the very act of their willing engagement is enough to please and satisfy him, and gives him that much more of an opportunity to advance his own cause.

The way this generally works is one decides to invoke a higher power to gain personal power and wealth, and the ability to satisfy one’s lusts to the nth degree. The devil is only too willing to comply. If one believes this process is not possible and is only a fanciful myth, one might want to know that even the Holy Scriptures state that the devil is the overall ruling power of this present world and that his power and authority is superseded only by the Lord Himself:

Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. [2Corinthians 4:1-4]

One may wonder how the devil has such power that he can make people oblivious to the Gospel which would otherwise set them free. How does he blind them? It is actually very simple: They must be unbelieving. If one chooses not to believe he subjects himself to spiritual blindness. If one has no love for the truth the truth will consequently be hidden to him. The Lord protects His Truth and His Gospel and does not throw His pearls before swine. Because they do not believe, they cut themselves off from any advancement or blessing from the Lord.

This leaves them with only two choices. They can attempt to make it in this world only through their own power and strength which includes help from other unbelievers. Most, however, have no such access to higher human power or wealth and know that those who have it will probably never allow them in their exclusive clubs. Their lives, then, are destined to be humble.

The second choice is to invoke the only other higher power available. Many unbelievers want no part of this, though. They are wise enough in their own eyes that such a route will cost them later and their personal desires are such that they would rather do without or with very little and thus maintain their own pride and limited freedom. Historically, these people usually comprise the lower classes. They are not tied into those with wealth, the higher classes, and refuse, possibly from fear, any close association with the devil. Their understanding is limited but at least they are not sell-outs.

Regarding those who refuse to be denied, however, they simply do not care about any future payment. They have enough confidence in themselves that they feel they will find a way out of that when the time comes or simply continue to negotiate and make future deals. When the political/religious leaders of the Jews in the first century decided to make a deal with the Romans to get the Lord, it was not as if they were not already well aware of invoking high demonic powers. This had already been part of their modus operandi.

The Lord Jesus had already revealed their hearts and motives on this and rebuked them for it. He told them and the entire nation what they were. They were exposed.

They had no legal authority to kill Him but the Romans did. It was thus to the Romans they went but only in a very deceptive, conspiratorial way. They rigged things behind the scenes in such a way that they essentially grabbed Pontius Pilate by the, well, by the heart, we will say. He had no idea what was going on until the trap was sprung. When it was he suddenly saw his entire career and reputation going up in flames if he did not comply with their wishes. To say this was diabolical on their part is somewhat of an understatement, if that is possible, in that I think they must have greatly impressed the devil with their conniving.

They were thinking only about the present. If they did think at all about the future they never expected what would eventually happen. They effectively not only sealed their own fate, they sealed the fate of their nation. That the Lord died for the nation is true, but only for the believing remnant. When full payment was eventually called for, the unbelievers were forced to pay in full. They lost it all. And in a strange karmic-déjà vu twist of Biblical proportions, it was those very Romans who brought forth both justice and judgment. The conspirators destroyed themselves with their own scheming brilliance.

And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. “Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!” [Matthew 18:2-7] [1]

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” [John 2:19]

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We call it the Church. This word is from the Greek word Ekklesia. The Hebrew word is Qahal. It refers to the entire worldwide congregation of the Lord Jesus. Relationally, it is a spiritual community composed of all believers working together. It was known in the beginning as “The Community of the Called-Out Ones.” It has never referred to a single denomination though some have appropriated the title.

The Church is not a building. Though we call them “churches” today that was not the case in the beginning. In fact, there were no official church buildings for THREE CENTURIES. The early believers met almost exclusively in private homes. They did not “go to church” in order to “have church.” Real Christians ARE the Church.

The best chance the enemy had at destroying the Church was destroying the Lord. If God’s enemies could manage to kill Him before He did any more damage to their kingdom they would succeed at eliminating the possibility of the Lord’s movement reaching the powerful spiritual level it was blessed with at Pentecost. The devil knew he could never allow that to happen or he would lose it all.

So the Lord had to be destroyed. They tried it several times, even at the beginning of His ministry at Nazareth, but continued to be woefully unsuccessful. No matter how hard they tried they couldn’t get Him.

They claimed He was a liar, a false prophet, and certainly a false messiah. They said He was demon-possessed. They insisted He was crazy, something even His own family considered. They also said He was a drunk and a glutton. Imagine that. After a forty-day fast? Those idiots did everything they possibly could do destroy Him and His reputation. They attempted to destroy His good Name. Many were convinced by their lies.

But those who felt compelled to believe in Him were never convinced by such falsehoods. They knew all of these false pronouncements were lies. They knew the Lord’s enemies must lie about Him and slander Him in an attempt to destroy Him so they could save their own lives and their own reputations. They had previously succeeded in convincing almost everybody that they were right, that they were legitimate, that they were in religious control legally and by divine right. This meant the entire temple complex. It meant every synagogue. The bad guys had taken control of the entire operation.

“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Him. And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.” [Luke 16:13-15]

They dressed very well for the part. They did anything they could to look like holy men, to look like men separated out by God for His purposes, and claimed exclusive religious authority over the people. They created a higher caste in which they deemed themselves the only worthwhile members. They relegated everyone else—the 99%—to the lowest of the low and thereby created another class, one of voiceless nobodies with no authority, and denied them a proper spiritual education, allowing them to be taught only the false doctrines and dogmas of their exclusive club. Whoever dissented was made to pay. They even violated the Law of Moses by creating their own unwritten interpretation that eventually gained more prominence than the Law itself.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” [Matthew 23:23-28]

When the time came for the Lord to lay down His life and fulfill His calling as the Sacrifice Lamb to buy back our freedom and rescue us from sin and death, His enemies pounced. They worked very hard for that opportunity. They could hardly believe their good fortune. They had lied about Him repeatedly and did everything they could and it finally paid off. All of their filth and innuendo and slimy lies and slander and libel finally came to fruition.

When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this Man’s blood; see to that yourselves.” And all the people said, “His blood shall be on us and on our children!” [Matthew 27:24-25]

After the Lord had already been beaten up to an inch of His life and was hanging on the cross those people still were not through. They had to keep pounding away verbally to get in as many shots as they could before He died.

Those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads, and saying, “Ha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself, and come down from the cross!” In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes, were mocking Him among themselves and saying, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!” Those who were crucified with Him were also insulting Him. [Mark 15:29-32]

We all know the rest of the story. The Lord died. They killed Him. They released as much of their hate and vitriol as they could. For almost three days the Lord’s reputation was completely destroyed. He was just one more false prophet who met His fate. All the great things He had done in His ministry were largely forgotten. Even His own close disciples huddled in fear, knowing they could very well be next. There was no solution for this incredible miscarriage of justice. All was lost.

Then the Lord Jesus did the impossible. HE ACTUALLY RAISED HIMSELF FROM THE DEAD JUST LIKE HE SAID HE WOULD.

They did indeed destroy the Temple. The enemies of the Lord were exulting in their great success. They had eliminated the threat to their wicked and despicable kingdom. And yet, forty years later they were the ones who were destroyed forever.

“For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” [Luke 19:43-44]

And while some were talking about the temple, that it was adorned with beautiful stones and votive gifts, He said, “As for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down.” [Luke 21:5-6]

Though they killed the Lord and killed a great many of His followers in the first major persecution wave of the early Church, He didn’t stay dead and all of His followers gained eternal life. But Jerusalem was destroyed. The temple was destroyed. Those evil people were all put out of business. And every single one of the Lord’s people thrived. No matter what anyone tried to do to them they kept going. They kept preaching. They kept teaching. They kept loving. They often suffered greatly but then just got right back up again and kept on going. They would never stop unless they were killed. Nothing anyone tried worked. If they died they went to heaven. If they stayed alive they kept doing the work of the Lord. They pulled together. They worked together. They loved each other. THEY EVANGELIZED THE ENTIRE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THEN WENT TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH.

The lesson to be learned here is that if you are a real Christian you will certainly have enemies who will hate you and want to take you out. It all depends on the effect you are having upon those enemies. If you are a Christian in love with the world you will be safe, of course, but friendship with the world is enmity with God. Here is an example of the proper attitude of real Christians:

But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the Law, respected by all the people, stood up in the Council and gave orders to put the men outside for a short time. And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you propose to do with these men. For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a group of about four hundred men joined up with him. But he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census and drew away some people after him; he too perished, and all those who followed him were scattered. So in the present case, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or action is of men, it will be overthrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them; or else you may even be found fighting against God.”

They took his advice; and after calling the apostles in, they flogged them and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then released them. So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. [Acts 5:34-42]

There is a Great Awakening coming to America. Christians are waking up. Many have been bound by religious garbage. But so many of you reading this know exactly what I am talking about. You have been attacked in the past and have been trying to recover ever since. Some of you have suffered greatly and wonder if you will ever regain the fight and spiritual vitality you once possessed. It appears as though the enemy has gained the victory and even that the Lord doesn’t much care. These are all lies. The enemy will get his. Here is my advice:

Even if you have not suffered so much but know you are not operating at top speed and full strength, you must allow the Lord to raise you back up by raising yourself up. I am not referring to some lame self-help stuff. This is a purely spiritual situation. The Lord has called each of his children to go work in the fields and no one else can do your job. You must take the time right now to begin reevaluating everything and determine to return to full strength in this coming new year. I will close with this:

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary. [Isaiah 40:28-31]

The Hebrew word for “wait” in this passage is qavah. It means to not just wait passively but to wait patiently, eagerly, hopefully, and expectantly. It is an active word connoting being filled to the brim in faithful anticipation of what the Lord is going to do, namely, that He will provide NEW STRENGTH and ENERGY and POWER and will overcome all of one’s weariness and tiredness, and by implication even lethargy. Then one will RUN without getting tired and WALK without getting weary. This waiting eagerly for the Lord will allow one to receive strength enough to run a spiritual Ironman Triathlon! So we must not just sit around waiting in a static sense but wait dynamically and actively and with great faith. The waiting itself is waiting in strength which we provide in anticipation of the Lord’s providence of GREAT STRENGTH that only He can provide. It could be that the more we put into the waiting, the greater the Lord’s providence will be!

Don’t ever forget that real Christianity demands impossible victories. In the Lord’s case they threw everything they had at Him and even killed Him but it did no good. They still lost. They were the biggest losers this world has ever known and so are those who attack the Lord today and His people. Such attackers are losers, and unless they repent they will prove it eternally by losing their souls. Don’t let them stop you, especially those wolves in places of authority dressed like sheep.

Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to WAIT for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” [Acts 1:4-5][1]

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned.” [Luke 6:37]

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When the Lord Jesus rebuked the Pharisees He didn’t name names. He didn’t slander individuals. But this has never stopped “Christians” from engaging in the practice. It began almost two thousand years ago and has never ceased. It continues today in a gross violation of the Lord’s Golden Rule.

“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” [Matthew 7:1-5]

THE SLANDER BRIGADE

Christian history is filled with Christians attacking and slandering other Christians. In fact, some Christians have created “ministries” that do nothing more than malign other Christians and Christian groups. They have decided that they are worthy of doing this. For some bizarre reason, they consider themselves all-knowing experts and thus perfectly able to bring railing accusations against any Christian or Christian group that does not see or practice Christianity they way they do. This is the height of religious arrogance in that the practitioners thereof must assume they have all light and knowledge, and are therefore qualified to thumbs up or thumbs down any believer or group of believers of their choosing.

Even though the Lord Jesus, on at least one recorded occasion, referred to a particular group of unbelieving Jews and Pharisees as “of your father the devil,” he was not engaging in personal condemnation. He LOVED these people and would have been overjoyed if they had repented. He was merely stating fact in defense of His own teachings after they attacked Him, in exactly the same way the Christian maligners attack those they think are heretics. He did this in a manner which exposed the accusing enemy who was intent on slandering His reputation, and who was hidden very well behind religious clothing and enjoyed a level of popular support.

To sort this out, first consider the verse in question:

“Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” [John 8:43-44]

Now look at these verses:

“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” [John 3:17]

“If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.” [John 12:47-48]

SELF-SERVING HERETIC HUNTERS

It is one thing to search for truth, find it, and attempt to share it. It is quite another thing to condemn Christians who appear deficient of it. Now pay attention to this:

THE REJECTION OF THE LORD’S TRUTH CAUSES SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS.

Each of us is walking in the light we have. Some of us are always trying to gain more light. Therefore, if one doesn’t yet have eyes to see everything he is supposed to see, he is never going to see until he gets eyes to see. They must want to see. No one can force them to see. Thus, our focus should be on helping each other “see.” If one does not yet “see” or doesn’t want to see we are commanded to love anyway. The best way the fault-finding heretic hunters can get right with the Lord is to go spend some time with the people they condemn and serve them. Proving one’s love is better than winning an argument.

I recently saw a website in which a minister who was condemned by a heretic-hunter group actually responded to the article condemning him in a loving way. There was no eye-for-an-eye garbage or the ubiquitous condemnation return fire. This person was not condemning them though they were condemning him. I thought it very refreshing and it obviously let me know who was the better disciple. Regarding who believed what or who was teaching what didn’t matter in that instance. What mattered was obedience to the command of the Lord to love one another.

IT’S “LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR” NOT “CONDEMN YOUR NEIGHBOR”

In the final analysis consider the fact that if someone actually does have all light and knows the teachings of the Lord by heart and fulfills them every second of every day, then that person would know who is right and who is wrong. But that person would also know there is a higher order of behavior toward one another and would never judge or condemn someone who knew less.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails… [1Corinthians 13:4-8] [1]

By their very behavior the slanderous heretic hunters are condemning themselves by violating the Lord’s Word. Without repentance for their wrongheaded actions His Word will judge them at the last day.

The adversary is a master of propaganda. He revels in misinformation. He lives to deceive. If he can’t stop you he will try to send you in the wrong direction. He does everything in his power to conceal the truth.

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And it should be evident that what is referred to in an overall general sense by an unsuspecting world as “Christianity” is actually a vast collection of unrelated, incongruent, disparate, and often contradictory elements, from merely human but also otherworldly sources, with no connection whatsoever to the original. Unreal Christianity is thus rife with untruths, half-truths, fruitless rituals, syncretic misapplications, and even what Paul referred to as teachings of demons.

The million or so separate Christian camps each have their own primary ideology and religious slant, and each, for the most part, declines close fellowship with the others for fear that its individual identity and brand will be diluted and weakened, and thus compromised toward funding and support. Many of these factions, some quite large, got started because some DA believed the whispered fabrications of the enemy or the weird ramblings of his own wayward mind and ran with them, taking many clueless hangers-on along for the ride.

Once such groups effectively progress from single dominator and analogous cultic origins to gain the desired reputable respectability and requisite numbers, a strange but perfectly understandable phenomenon occurs: The recognition, reception, and incorporation of greater truth, light, and correction is absolutely refused so as not to interfere with established success and acceptance. This only facilitates even more splintering off, the creation of new sects, and greater division. Thus, the multitudinous Christian factions of the last two millennia have more in common with the devil’s obfuscations and religious confusion than the Lord’s original teachings.

Therefore, if one wants to figure out what is what and which is which, one must be willing to do comprehensive, long-term, in-depth study of the Word of God and particularly the pure teachings of the Lord Jesus. One must investigate actual Christian history (not the fake constructs) in as much detail as possible. One must also do much wide-ranging research (much), with no vested interest or personal religious apologia, and wade through the ubiquitous, muddy, debris-laden waters of deception and misinformation to sort it all out.

In that process, as a byproduct of the search for truth, one will discover the frauds and the deceived. Their deceptive cloaking devices will fall away. They will no longer be concealed and they become completely exposed. This is exactly what happened with the Lord regarding the fake religionists of His time. He could see right through them. He could also apparently see demons, which, when you think about it, is really cool, since the devious imps were used to being invisible and getting away with all their lying shenanigans but could no longer hide—Anywhere. Whenever they attempted their magic disappearing act around the Lord it no longer worked.

Here’s just one example:

In the synagogue there was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, “Let us alone! What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in the midst of the people, he came out of him without doing him any harm. And amazement came upon them all, and they began talking with one another saying, “What is this message? For with authority and power He commands the unclean spirits and they come out.” [Luke 4:33-36]

Think about this the next time you go to church.

FRUITLESS FRAUDS

It was therefore impossible to deceive Him. This is the way it must be for His real disciples. This is why the vast majority of those who claim to be NT Christians are not seeing Christians—they still have their blinders on. They can’t see the enemy. They remain deceived.

As a starting point in one’s search for truth and dividing truth from error, consider what the Lord told the frauds and deceived people of His time:

“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it.” [Matthew 21:43] [1]

The Lord gave us a wake-up call in 1906. What happened then illustrated how powerful the Lord can be when we get it right, even in the face of great opposition.

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It was a powerful event. What was just as striking, however, was the usual resistance by the opposing authoritative Christians. The humble organizers, the good guys, those who were merely self-effacing enough to seek and obey the Lord, were hounded from the very beginning and eventually forced into using the most rudimentary building for services.

They began in a house, but the movement grew too big too fast and they couldn’t allocate enough houses fast enough, so they were blessed with a bigger building, though old and rundown. It had much in common with the Lord’s actual beginning, something we lose the significance of over time. But there really wasn’t any room anywhere in Bethlehem for the Lord to be born. No residence, no inn, no nothing where people normally live. He ended up with the farm animals, something equivalent to our barns, but a small one. He apparently had no problem with this. He even expected it. He expected this world to treat Him in such a way. He was born anyway, in a place none of us would ever permit our own babies to be born, regardless of circumstances.

The same thing happens with His work. The apostle Paul said no people of higher bearing are chosen, in general, for the Lord’s work, largely because they deem themselves far too important. They are also ultra-pampered. There is no room for a pampered preacher in the Lord’s real work, but we are besotten with pampered preachers everywhere we look. In fact, this has become the standard.

Where then, are the real preachers? Where are the real Christians?

In general, you will rarely find them in the limelight. William Seymour was a one-eyed black man shunned by much of Christian society yet the Lord worked wonders through him. The apostle Paul has been wrongly relegated after the fact as some sort of high churchman or great theologian. Of course, he was certainly brilliant, but much more so in a spiritual sense. Prior to his own personal Pentecost he used his theological brilliance and high religious standing to do the very opposite of what the Lord had intended for him. How did he get so lost? How did he get so caught up with his own pride? How did he ever get so full of himself? One might ask about 90% of today’s so-called pastors and preachers and priests and what have you.

To show what must be done NOW to correct this is to show what had to happen to Paul—the Lord knocked him down, thoroughly humiliated him, showed him who the boss was, blinded him and made him helpless, and then completely revamped his life. He showed him how he was completely wrong and on the wrong path and had the wrong attitude. He could have just let him go to hell but He knew Paul would respond correctly to the correct stimuli, which in this case involved knocking him on his butt and destroying everything that he had previously held dear.

Paul responded properly. He quickly ascertained that he had been a giant jerk of the worst kind and was thoroughly embarrassed. After a few days his sight returned. He underwent full repentance, giving himself totally to the Lord for whatever purpose no matter how difficult. He went through further humiliation (from a religious view point, that is) by immersing himself in water in the Name of Jesus, the name of his new Master and Savior, and he was soon filled with the Holy Spirit. It’s all right there in the Book of Acts. It was a complete changeover, beyond even a total remodel. The old Paul was DEAD. A new Paul was BORN.

RESISTING REAL CHRISTIANITY BRINGS GRADUAL DEPRAVITY

The same thing must happen to Unreal Christianity in America or it will continue the death spiral it brought upon itself and has engaged in ever since it rejected that which all must submit to for new life to come forth. It is not so much that the Lord cares all that much for trying to set right those Christian leaders who will never change or repent, like so many of the Pharisees of old. It is that He wants to rescue all those good-hearted Christians living in a lesser state, as Paul was, who are deceived and blinded by fake Christianity. They will never be set free from within. It must come from without, as the Lord must do so much from without since He has been rejected in most places so much from within.

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind… [Romans 1:22-28] [1]

The anointed prophetic Word is designed by God to get His people on track and correct them when they get off track. This is why many Christians reject it.

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THEY REMAIN HATED TODAY

OT Prophets paid a great personal price to be the spokesmen for God. Without their work the forces of evil had no opposition and ran roughshod over the Lord’s people. One wonders why it even mattered in part because the great majority of “the Lord’s people” had no real care or concern for the Lord’s purposes anyway and always segued into their desired natural condition regardless of the effort to help them. They loved living in the flesh, so to speak. This in turn caused them to embrace demonic entities.

Along came the prophet, sent by God, to correct their behavior, in the attempt to save them from sin and eventual eternal death, because despite their gross sin the Lord still loved them and did His best to help.

In a fine how-do-you-do, the majority of these people thanked Him by attempting to stick their collective finger in God’s eye and essentially told Him to go to hell. Of course, that’s exactly where they ended up, somewhat ironically (Hey! This isn’t heaven!), but such spiritually obtuse nitwits had no conception of reality anymore due to the blindness that befell them as a result of their rejection of truth. Once they reached that sordid state of soul the odds of returning to God were slim and none.

I JUST DROPPED IN TO SEE WHAT CONDITION YOUR CONDITION WAS IN

The apostle Paul wrote about this very strange Israelite condition centuries later. He should know, of course, because prior to his miraculous new birth experience while still wrapped in gaudy religious robery and exulting in all his glorious Tribe of Benjamin and Pharisee status, he had the aforesaid condition, né disease, in one of its worst forms. Though an expert carrier, He had no understanding of the cause of the disease until the Lord opened his eyes. He explained it thus:

For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness. [2Thessalonians 2:11-12]

Refusing to accept and believe New Covenant truth is thus defined as a form of wickedness.

Paul claimed the Lord graciously forgave him for his previous wicked religious behavior and hatred of real Christians because he had acted out of ignorance and in unbelief:

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief… [1Timothy 1:12-13]

In other words, he had been a complete doofus with regard to the truth and because of his high intensity personality he had acted out with extreme aggression on his great doofusness with great passion. Before salvation Paul had no love for the truth and was blind due to his rejection of it. He even ended up embracing bad spirits. By his own account he was formerly a:

1: Blasphemer

2: Persecutor

3: Violent Aggressor

His passion for his religion was such that no man on earth would ever be able to get through to him. Like so many blind Christians today who insist on their own skewed version of truth, they refuse any and every corrective voice, and it is no wonder since they have great support groups of like-minded doofuses to back them up. This is especially true of the blind pulpiteers with no accountability to God since they are surrounded with great clouds of doofuss witnesses congregating before them and sycophant elder boards who often count success in terms of the offerings they siphon every Sunday.

“Who can argue against our great standing and success and massive numbers, especially with all this money coming in? Come on man, gimme a break! Is it not obvious that God has blessed us?”

THEN WHY DIDN’T GOD LIKEWISE BLESS THE MINISTRY OF THE LORD JESUS?

Some of these places have a level of salt and light but it’s not so tasty and not so bright.

Cranking it up to a higher spiritual degree demands a level of discipleship usually rejected so success must be measured in alternative ways. The reality in our modern times is that church and ministry organizations in general subsist not on the Spirit of the Lord and His anointed Word for sustenance but on monetary donations, and their skillful knack at gaining donations is actually what makes them successful. Few other organizations have the boldness to repeatedly collect donations all the time regardless of next to zero spiritual effectiveness.

And yet Paul, the former small-statured colossal doofus who became a powerful Spirit-filled apostle, preacher, teacher, and great witness giant of a man for the Lord had every opportunity granted by the Lord to accept donations for the spiritually abundant work he did, which quite possibly no real Christian has ever matched, but almost always refused to do. He even said it was his right. Why did he do this? Could it be the same reason the Lord never took anything at all for Himself except what was necessary to keep Him alive and strong for the pure purposes of ministry? He chose to hoe an extremely hard row on purpose and submitted Himself to a very difficult life due to the very difficult mission He had to complete.

THE ABSOLUTE GREATEST OF ALL TIME

No one ever lived a more difficult life with more bountiful spiritual success. The Lord Jesus is our one and only perfect example, and most donation-obsessed so-called giants (antigiants) of the faith look absolutely nothing like Him. This is not to question those who rightfully accept donations but there certainly seems to be a correlation between the most powerfully effective ministries and their very low donation acceptance level.

“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” [Luke 14:27]

BUT I DIGRESS

I remember a preacher from my early days who insisted that whenever he preached he had to wear the three-piece dark suit he always wore that he called his “monkey suit.” I guess that is a form of carrying one’s cross. I also remember a good-natured friend at church who sometimes ministered in a pulpit. Remember, this was a few years back and among the usual conservative elements of that time. Smiling, he wondered about the possibility of “preaching in a flannel shirt.” Back then you never saw anyone preaching or even at Sunday church without wearing some form of higher conservative clothing, unless you were associated with the far out laid back churches on the west coast and a few others like them. I most often wore suits and ties, even in violent summer heat. I could certainly relate to the “monkey suit” idea. Nevertheless, though the Lord was always properly attired I don’t think He ever wore a necktie.

But He also never put on airs or dressed for the purposes of being legitimate in the eyes of those with the cash in order to appear worthy to receive donations like so many so-called ministers do. However, Joel Osteen made a good point once, when someone suggested he go casual and maybe preach in some bib overalls. He answered with laughter something to the effect, “Can you imagine someone who looks like me preaching in overalls?”

While I fully understand Joel’s sentiment and appreciate his humility, I think the apostle Paul probably looked more like the latter than the former, in that he probably dressed more like a farmer than a “latter day saint,” who apparently got their uniform ideas from a 1950s IBM dress code manual.

CLIMBING OUT OF THE PHARISEE PIT

I hope you can see where this is going. In its effort to look the part, much of Christianity has fallen into the same Pharisee pit that Paul was rescued from. When “official” Christianity does this regarding New Covenant truth, it bars the door to any truth they do not deem truth, which is exactly what the ancient Israelites did, which is exactly why the Lord was always raising up and sending out prophets to them, which is what He is always forced to do with successful though very wayward “churches,” and is why such establishments continue to fight the corrective voices of nondescript prophets sent their way.

At the judgment the Lord may tell such Chorazin and Capernaum churches that He kept sending people to correct them, and they may say “Who?” and He may point out the sendees and say “Them,” and the faux church leaders may say “Them!” But we…” And the Lord may say something like, “But you silenced them or sent them packing or rejected them because you had no respect for them because they didn’t look the part (sound familiar?) and because you had so much pride in yourselves and you didn’t understand that in rejecting them you were rejecting the One who sent them.” At that point the Faux Bros may still be mumbling to themselves, “Them? But they, but we, but…”

OH LORDY, WE SCREWED UP

Some formerly screwed up church people and preachers have actually expressed this sentiment and corrected their behavior. Like the apostle Paul they finally saw the error of their ways after getting knocked flat on their backs doing their usual Damascus road routine which involved judging everyone on the planet that didn’t look like them and act like them and believe like them. Humble pie has served them well. They have since decided to try to get their priorities straight but it remains a struggle for some. Many continue having a hard time being corrected and are trying to get it right but are besieged under the onslaught of rigid Religious Correctness. (Yes, due to my own past knowledge of and experience in this regard I was ahead of the curve on that one also.) From my book:

A VISIT TO GALATIA

In these verses, Paul gives us a succinct yet powerfully revealing picture of that which continues to keep much of Christianity in the dark ages. He makes it plain that spiritual goals cannot be reached by human effort. He gives us a concise rendering of the fact that the power of God is not contingent upon works but upon pure faith. Why then are we Christians stubbornly intent on doing all that is possible to organize God out of His own fellowship and out of the very teachings which we profess to uphold? It’s no wonder much of the world thinks Christians are goofy. It’s no wonder we’re always playing catch-up ball—original thought is not allowed. True freedom in the Lord is not allowed either, and we’re paying a huge price for it. It’s impossible for one to be free when he or she is dragging around a Religiously Correct ball and chain. [1]

We all know there are fake preachers thoroughly succumbed to religious deadness for the sake of wallets and respectability. Just turn on Christian television as a reminder. While there are some in that far away land of lights, cameras, and action who are for real, there are many who are as fake as a sold-out politician and are either seriously deceived (stupid) or thoroughly compromised. Bills must be paid, if you get my drift, and anti-Christian agendas must be attended to, because the people giving the money believe in and insist upon the false agendas. Does one really think one will get donations from (insert name of denomination here) unless one preaches the doctrines of (insert same name of denomination here)?

THE ATTACK OF THE CLONES

“But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent.” [Revelation 2:4-5]

This is why so many churches are Goth dark even though the lights are on. Their lampstand has been removed because they left their first love. Many other churches are likewise dark though they never left their first love simply because they had no first love to begin with. What’s a Christian’s first love anyway? Is it not the following?

And He said to him, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’” [Matthew 22:37-39]

Of course, Christians can’t obey the second without first obeying the first, which proves why many do not obey the first since it is obvious they refuse to obey the second, and we know they don’t obey the second in part because they reject the corrective voice of the Lord who is trying TO SAVE THEM FROM THEMSELVES. Again, it is why we have four billion Christian denominations at odds with each other that insist on majoring on man-made differences and distinctions instead of coming together in unity founded on the ONE and only ONE full curriculum of the Lord Jesus.

And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” [John 9:39-41]

From this clear statement it is obvious that the blind Christians who insist they see remain in their sins though they play the church game very well and are excellent at looking the part. Again, these people are mere actors. There is no THERE there. They have rejected the Lord’s New Covenant truth as did Paul in his previous incarnation and defend their faux constructs to their own detriment. Therefore they do not know they are blind and in sin and must fight against such assertions even if they attack the One they claim to serve. If He can’t get through to them (and it certainly isn’t for a lack of trying!), who can? How long will they persist in fighting against the Lord?

“But many who are first will be last; and the last, first.” [Matthew 19:30][2]

One of the worst things that ever happened to Christianity was that it became official, as in, “This is the way you do it—this way and no other way.” And, of course, everyone has their own version of that.

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It is still such a difficult truth to grasp, to compare what the Lord’s movement was way back then in comparison to official renditions of the present. To outside observers they were just a group of haggard men with dusty feet and sandals, and flowing threads from homemade looms, traveling around with yet another perspective on the national belief. Unlike every other message being perpetrated then or now, however, their message—the Word—was a word new in every way but which existed from the foundation of the world. Regardless of what those who couldn’t see saw, those men and their Leader preached not just one of many variations of truth, though such a thing is not possible and exists only as a mental construct, but the fullness of the only Truth. It was pure, it was powerful, and it was fully liberating.

CHOOSING THE KINGDOM AND THE KINGDOM MEN

Their world had become gloomy and predictable and saturated with a longing for what once was but could never ever be again, and in that cold void a lower echelon creep class of really first class dark-souled sinister quasi-humans took over and rose to the top of control like scum on a pond. They were dream dashers and fermented vermin, and the Lord knew from the start what would be needed to destroy them.

He chose men of the earth with tough skin and weeping hearts. They had done all their spiritual seeking in secret until He came and then the emotions flowed like streams in arid lands. They could not put words to the feelings they felt when He got around them but it was like someone turned on an internal faucet and allowed them to be what they were created to be. From the aforementioned gloom, great joy broke out among them. They became happy and secure, and had crossed over a spiritual threshold that previously had been hidden and denied, and they began to be fulfilled, soaking up the Lord’s presence like a dry and thirsty sponge.

He chose them because He knew they would let it all flow—that Spirit river He released—and would then know how to help others exit the phony front and enter the King’s realm. He chose them because they had not become overcome by the powerful gloomy and mysterious forces that raid men’s brains like disease and cause them to walk about enchanted and lost though repeatedly told they are found, when they know in their hearts it’s not true. In reality, the only “found” ones among them, those whose lives actually amounted to something who acquired honor and respect, though misguided and coerced, were the ones who found their authority over everyone else to be the big prize. And they played it to the hilt in expertly covering their deception so none would know or see the resulting unfortunate enchantment or its cause that had descended upon the hearts of a captured people.

BEYOND THE FACADE OF SURFACE PERSPECTIVE

The Lord could not afford to be fake in any way. His ragtag group was organic and real and made no apologies for being human nor did they even try to cover it up or dress it up or slick it down or make it presentable so as not to be human but a mere shallow façade of faded-out glory. Instead, the Lord taught them how to find their glory and walk in their glory and eventually be filled to overflowing with His glory, and that demanded an adherence to truth, and this is why the great vaunted fakers hated them so. They knew they had killed their own glory long, long before and could never get it back without Him because they had sold out to a false vision and identity of what they insisted was “the right way to do it—our way and no other way.” They, like so many fake Christians of now, were invested up to their eyeballs in a false anti-God paradigm masquerading as official spirituality.

But their way then, just like the way of so many now, is nothing but a shiny version of death. And if the sacred zombies of now could talk to the sacred zombies of then the former guys would tell them they’ve died a thousand deaths since putting off their mortal coil and know it’s all over for them with no escape, and that their future is nothing but a deserving judgment into the eternal doom awaiting, and they would tell those who have taken their path to please get off of it and don’t be fools like they were.

They can’t, however, speak from the grave and they cannot warn but they would if they could, not that it would do any good because the faux bros of now know they’ve sold out to the dead brand they’ve inflicted on so many others and they know they would never get along with fully submitting to the Lord Jesus anyway.

So they go on in their splendor with so many deluded ones fawning over their every word, not even aware that the giant spotlight they walk in is supposed to be His and His alone, and instead of being fearful of what they’ve done and the price they will pay they just keep on running it out there day after day.

DRAMA QUEENS

They believe they have reached a summit and deserve it and prove it since they actually have attained it in that they are actually up there, on a stage, raised up to be noticed and heard, but it is so strange that the higher they go the less sense with regard to truth they make, the less spiritual effect they have, and the more they fulfill the Lord’s perfect phraseology that transcends all time and every culture:

“For you have taken away the key of knowledge;

“You yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.” [Luke 11:52][1]

What happens to all the many millions of those who sit out there in the faceless crowds on the other side of official legitimacy trying to enter? And why must they always be denied and somehow instead be satisfied with mere crumbs under a table? Why are those few who have mustered the high places continually denying everyone else the right to ascend as well? Could it be because they have actually achieved nothing at all? The Lord said that though they have gained full control and rule over everyone else and have deemed their respective versions of Christianity “official,” they have actually never even entered the place the Lord said we must and they refuse to let anyone else in their charge enter it.

Does this not prove and reveal the existence of a deceiving sleight of hand process in the works?

Christianity was never meant to be show time. It was the Pharisees, those great fancy-robed and headdressed thespians of yesteryear, who demanded a stage and a platform on which they could perform and pontificate, while pressuring all others to conform and desiccate, and who demanded the same vaunted high places of antiquity condemned by God on which demons danced undaunted and from which the unseen principalities and powers of this world ruled.

Perhaps this is why the Maker of the universe went virtually unrecognized when He entered the very world that He created: He is the antithesis of the showboating religious stage player. Official Christianity has thus rendered Him unseen and effectively unknown.

This is why the great many “official” Christians who have yet to enter His kingdom but desperately want to are told they are already in it by those who never entered it themselves.

At first the prophets were respected. Then their pronouncements caused discomfort. Then the people got angry. Then the prophets were rejected.

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This is the way it always goes. The message of the prophets never changed. The only thing that changed was the reaction to the message. The reaction was worse in relation to the prophet’s closeness to home. Rejecting truth caused unrepentant people to turn inward, ingrown, and interbred. They eliminated the possibility of receiving the seed of God which always came from without. They became anti-fruitful, grew spiritually lazy and sluggish, and wanted an easy time of things. God would have nothing of it.

The Lord Jesus spoke nothing but Truth. The Truth inevitably caused a bad reaction. The bad reaction denoted the place the reaction came from in that the hearts of such people had grown far away from God though they all considered themselves just fine with God.

THANK YOU LORD THAT WE ARE NOT LIKE OTHER RELIGIONS

Christianity in general likes itself and sees no problem. This is the problem. The Lord is fixing the problem. That’s why we are in the early stages of a national Great Awakening. But the Awakening is still being opposed by the very people who should be supporting it. They oppose it because they like things the way they are. They are resistant to change. This is not new. They take the correcting and reforming words of the Lord as an offense.

I have written hundreds of well-researched articles like this reflecting the exact scenario regarding the closed hearts and minds of so many so-called Christians who oppose the Lord while claiming to support Him. The evidence for this should be obvious to any nominal believer by the very lack of evidence among the unreal believers of actually obeying the Lord and carrying out His plan.

“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.” [Acts 7:51]

Their hearts are not right. They resist. They oppose. None of it surprises the Lord. He has a bit of experience in this area. The same spiritual dynamic always happens and it always happens the same way. For a refresher course, it goes like this:

(1) An obscure nobody suddenly speaks forth something so profound and so different that the first reaction from the entrenched religious traditionalist status-quo is silent shock (“What did He just say?”).

(2) They try to throw Him off a cliff.

IDOL O’ PROTOCOL

This is exactly what they attempted. Only it was not, as one may suppose, the actions of some strange evil street protesters who advocate for killing everyone who doesn’t believe exactly everything they believe. But wait. It kind of was. But before they assumed that form they were nice church-law-abiding pew-sitting go-along-with-the-program types who somehow found great spiritual nourishment in silently watching the pros perform while making sure such pros performed in exactly the way they were accustomed. They had no hankering for anyone even thinking of doing anything even the slightest bit different or break in any way from the correct time-honored protocol.

Then the Lord Jesus broke protocol. Actually, on His very first visit to His home town church after beginning His ministry when asked to read He proceeded to the front, turned and faced the crowd, and read a very familiar passage. Then he said some other things from right out of the very Scriptures those people supposedly honored but never, ever mentioned. About this time and in that process He let everybody know that things would be different from now on and demonstrated it by very calmly picking up the dead carcass of religious protocol in His strong and mighty construction-worked hands and slamming it against the nearest wall splintering it into a thousand pieces. It was pretty cool. The church people were not happy. Here is the narrative:

And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written,

“THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.”

And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”

And He said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’”

And He said, “Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown.”

“But I say to you in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land; and yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; and they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff. [Luke 4:16-29][1]

The angel returned with his report and presented it to the Lord: The churches are dead. They act like they have it all together but are spiritually dead. They are congregations of pretenders…

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The Lord Jesus did all He could do in the first century to bring the false religious leaders to repentance. He failed. It was, of course, not His failure. It was theirs. They refused. It did not matter how well He revealed their many errors. They were dead set on maintaining their dead religious ways.

There is a clear record in the Gospels of all their many failures and wrong actions. He tells them plainly that though they believed themselves to be right with God they did not know God.

I SEE DEAD PEOPLE

It is no different today. Pick out any church on any street in America and the odds are huge that the leadership there will be out of fellowship with the Lord Jesus and are actually in opposition to Him. They look great. They have a great level of control and almost everyone there does what they are told. They are dead churches because the people are dead, the leadership is dead. There is a completely different standard of spirituality. Their standard is something otherworldly. It does not line up with Scripture. It is infused with false doctrines and teachings and this is borne out by its complete lack of spiritual effectiveness.

The Lord tries to get their attention but they refuse. They are smug. They are arrogant. They go about in their quiet manner looking and acting exactly like the world because that’s what they are—they are a picture of the unregenerate sinful world wrapped up in dead religious grave clothes. They are all prepared for a funeral.

“For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” [Matthew 23:27-28] [1]

REFUSING THE PROPER COMPARISON

The Lord failed to convince the Pharisees and Sadducees to repent. He has so far failed to get this particular church to repent. A church like this is representative of many churches in America. Each one proves everyday that the Lord Jesus is not in charge. Their ministry looks nothing like His. They are dead. And they force everyone who becomes part of the congregation to be dead like them.

As long as no one makes the proper comparison to the clear New Testament record of what a group of believers is supposed to look like no one is ever the wiser. All of these people want a church in which they can continue to be sinners and remain distant from the Lord and never be made to get right with Him.

They absolutely hate being convicted. They refuse to surrender to the Lord and thus force themselves to surrender to the church status quo.

They are filled with sin and corruption but no one there knows it because they refuse the Lord’s light and correction that would expose them for what they are. They want compromised Christianity, a place where they can be as worldly as the day is long so they can maintain their love of this world and their focus on worldly success.

At best they want a halfway house. They want to be in that strangely mythical place, somewhere between heaven and hell. They loathe the full expression of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Lord’s truth does not interest them. They reject Him. They are not for real.

…The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to put Jesus to death. But the governor said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?”

They all said, “CRUCIFY HIM!”

And he said, “Why, what evil has He done?”

But they kept shouting all the more, saying, “CRUCIFY HIM!”

When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this Man’s blood; see to that yourselves.”

And all the people said, “His blood shall be on us and on our children!” [Matthew 27:20-25]

THE DEMON WHISPERERS

The hysterical people intent on killing an innocent Man refused to listen to reason. They were egged on by demonic religious leaders who had such powerful control of their minds they could make them do anything. The religionists knew exactly what words to use, exactly what stories to spin, and exactly how to gain the greatest reaction. They were unchallenged masters of the medium.

The hysterical people had been programmed over several decades to do the bidding of their masters. One can always tell a CULT by the way the cult leaders are treated:

The mind-numbed crowd will never turn on its masters regardless of their purely evil nature and powerfully sinister actions.

Instead, they will always place full blame on their innocent victims.

Cult leaders can turn their pit bull masses on anyone or anything at any time whenever they apply the proper triggers. In this case they triggered the final inner mechanism in their wicked arsenal by arousing, at the perfect time, the maximum level of cultural inner hatred, and once it was fully armed, they released it full bore upon their greatest enemy for maximum impact.

THE POWER OF RELIGION

There is a reason religion has the power it does. There is a reason religious shysters use religion to gain control of people and coerce their money. It is lucrative. It answers the two basic and fundamental needs of narcissistic authoritarians, many of whom are cleverly concealed charlatans: (1) Authority, and (2) Money. These religionists take power and money as their right.

Here is one way to differentiate some of the real from the unreal when it comes to Christian ministers: The real ones will do the job the Lord called them to do whether they get paid or not (unreal ministers never work without getting paid); whether they are appreciated or not (unreal ministers will never work without ongoing full respect); and whether they are overly protected or not (unreal ministers will never subject themselves to real persecution).

The real ministers of the Gospel will never quit no matter how everyone else may quit on them. They will always continue on though their good names and characters are falsely and wrongly trashed.

The following ALWAYS applies to the real guys:

“Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man.” [Luke 6:22] [2]

REVIVING THE DEATH CULT?

The Lord Jesus—GOD HIMSELF—GOD WITH US—THE LONG-AWAITED MESSIAH—had arrived just as prophesied at the perfect time and He threatened the Death Cult and everything it stood for. He made war against it and would soon end it. He not only prophesied against its complete destruction but led the charge against its destruction.

The Death Cult would be completely incompatible with everything He planned to do in the future. It was a purely opposing force, rebellious to the core. It must therefore be eliminated.

Due to its refusal to admit fault and surrender, outright war to destroy it forever was the only alternative. This was the core construct of the spiritual war of the first century. It is why 70AD Jerusalem had to happen. It is also why God would never support its resurrection.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who support the Lord Jesus and those who oppose the Lord Jesus. Those who support Him support truth and oppose error. Those who oppose Him oppose truth and support error.

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“For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” [John 3:20-21]

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THEY ONLY COME OUT AT NIGHT

Error hates the light. It knows the light will expose it. It knows the light will ultimately kill it. It must therefore protect itself from light. To this end error will always oppose light for sheer self-preservation.

Though often reserved and unperceived, enjoying its dark place in the dirty shadows where the vermin and cockroaches roam, once error is exposed it reverts to its true nature—it rises up on its huffy hindquarters, rears its ugly head, and makes a complete jackass of itself.

Since it has no defense against bright shining truth other than taking on the persona of a first class idiot, it will be that idiot. It will own that idiotness. It will go off half-cocked at a moment’s notice. It will do the stupidest things ever done, things that make no sense whatsoever, in the effort to deflect attention from its crimes and keep its perverted little world intact against light, its deadly enemy.

And rather than face a fair fight, error greatly prefers to remain hidden in the dark shadows where no light penetrates. Error is chicken and a gutless wonder, and in the end will be nothing more than a fading howl sucked into a black hole in the far reaches of distant space.

SUNSHINE IS THE BEST DISINFECTANT

Christians who actually follow the Lord Jesus and know His Word know that He is the Light—the great powerful brightest shining light there is—and that He loves shining His light on all darkness, because He obviously knows darkness is the real enemy. He didn’t just talk the talk, He walked the transparent walk. He revealed the light out in the open for all to see. How is it possible for light to act otherwise? How can light be hidden? Why would light want to hide itself? That makes no sense whatsoever. It is the nature of light to be out in the open and lead the way. This is exactly how light fights the war on darkness.

This is why the Lord Jesus had a transparent ministry. There was no other way for the light to shine. Once He stepped out into the public eye and began His public ministry, He stepped forth as a bright shining beacon for all to behold. His central goal was to SHINE and to REVEAL DARKNESS, and thereby save and set free.

SUNSHINE SUPERMAN

“For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” [Mark 4:22-23]

He will continue to bring forth greater and greater truth to expose all the lies and all the error. The people standing in the place of lies and error will no longer have any place to hide. Truth will expose them. They may rant and rave and go crazy and all the rest or they may descend deeper into their dark dungeons, dank caverns, and slimy pits, but the Lord will find them. He will send great powerful light. He will pour it into all their secret places. All their evil deeds will be revealed. They will be exposed. Unless they surrender they will never recover.

ERROR HIDES IN THE DARK BECAUSE ITS WORKS ARE EVIL

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” George Orwell

The worst errorists are the official errorists. These are the people who have power and authority. Some are state sponsors of error. They are the people who stand in the place of legitimacy. They are the ones who demand honor but are dishonorable. While claiming to be upholders of the law they routinely violate the law. While claiming to be upholders of the Gospel they routinely violate the Gospel. While claiming to be upholders of the golden rule they routinely violate the golden rule.

Here is a fact I want everyone to know regarding this:

There is a God. He is the epitome of goodness. He is righteous and pure. He is powerful and strong. And unless these people change their ways and climb out from under their rocks, God is going to get them. He does not want to get them. He wants them to change and get right. He wants them to come into His light. But if they refuse, if they continue in their ever-increasing evil deeds with no desire to change for the better, and if they keep treating innocent people badly and using their great power to harm those who have chosen the light, God will certainly get them. It is only a matter of time.

THESE PEOPLE WILL PAY

God’s Creation is good. At least it was originally. But then evil people began fouling it up. The Word of God is clear that the evil set in motion millennia ago will only get worse over time simply because evil is progressive. Unless it is checked it grows ever more evil. There are things going on right now, a portion of it right out in the open, that are so unspeakably evil that past generations could never even fathom the possibility of their emergence. We might call this the unashamed darkness. Darkness usually knows its place. It knows its place is in the haunt of secrecy and hidden shadows. But some within the darkness are so vile they violate the darkness code. It is their attempt to make darkness appear as light.

Errorists are becoming the same way. They are flaunting their error openly and egregiously, and talking even louder and getting in your face all the more. They have come out of their dark and dirty little hovels in a last-ditch effort to fight the light while they still can. Some of them know what most who are supposedly in the light don’t know: The Light is increasing. It is shining brighter. No one knows this more than those who are truly in the light and those who are in abject darkness.

The dark errorists have been getting a pass for a long time. They have been able to operate in the open, legitimately, as if they had God’s blessing. But these people do not believe in God. In fact, they hate Him. But they love their darkness. They love their error. They have made themselves their own gods. They think they can get away with anything and that they will get away with it forever. They think their power has become too great to be successfully challenged. They have grown successful and powerful and have no intention of changing or turning back.

Their success has gone to their heads. They have blinded themselves to the truth. They cannot see and they refuse to consider the abyss that awaits. They have bought into the dark side. They are invested in it. They like its fruits. They like their false façade of credibility. They refuse to acknowledge the good Creator.

THE WORST ERRORISTS ARE “CHRISTIAN” ERRORISTS

Thus, the Lord has had no choice but to bring a war against them. It is the war of light against darkness. It is the war of truth against error. It is truly a War On Errorism.

All those on the side of darkness and error will be exposed for what they are. The Lord knows the perfect way to do this. He will shine His light and shine it ever brighter to expose all darkness. He will shine it even within all their dark little secret places they have become accustomed to hiding within, thinking they will always be hidden.

They have control. They sit in the seat of Moses as it were, but actually in the place of the Lord. They are pretending to be His. Every time the Lord sends someone to correct them they run him off. They hate the correcting voice of God. They hate any semblance of reform. They specialize in the character assassination of real prophets and teachers. They abhor the fact that God can always find a way to expose them and their error.

The need of correction and reform would mean they are in error and are wrong, and they cannot have that. It is too convicting. It makes them look bad. It hampers their ability to receive funding and collect donations. It makes them look like a bad investment. It makes them look bad in the eyes of the community. They have great fear of being branded for what they actually are. They are great at fooling people but they can’t fool everyone and they certainly can never fool God. They are fools to think they can.

As a testimony to their coming fate, here is a little story about what happened to some other people who took the same road:

He began to speak to them in parables: “A man PLANTED A VINEYARD AND PUT A WALL AROUND IT, AND DUG A VAT UNDER THE WINE PRESS AND BUILT A TOWER, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey.

“At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine-growers. They took him, and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and that one they killed; and so with many others, beating some and killing others.

“He had one more to send, a beloved son; he sent him last of all to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those vine-growers said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.

“What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and will give the vineyard to others.” [Mark 12:1-9] [1]

In Old Covenant terms they were called prophets. They were sent by God to stand up strongly for truth, speak out forcefully against error, and expose outright corruption in high places.

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“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.”

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him. [Acts 7:51-54]

Hold on to your hats folks, because 2017 will be a bumpy ride. It will also be a year of great blessing.

We have already seen the beginning of the overthrow of entrenched establishment principles, priorities, and prime movers and shakers. Three extremely powerful political dynasties have been pushed aside. The Powers That Be are doing one of two things they never thought they would be forced into. The first is to admit they never thought the day would come when the challenge against their authority has actually made their defeat possible. The second is scrambling around in their shocked amazement in the effort to gain or maintain a piece of the current pie.

Since corruption can never be eliminated wholesale at any given time in this corrupt and fallen world of mankind, it is not possible to eliminate all the compromised players and many will find a place on the new team. But the fact that three teams have been pretty much rendered ineffective and unwanted lets them know they are no longer in Kansas and that things for them could get even worse. They know an unraveling when they see it. They can feel the pulse of angry lesser power centers composed of millions of individuals who would otherwise have no power at all but have been forced into a new mindset after decades of being treated like chattel.

These people are not associated with mere street rioters blowing off steam, running around like proverbial headless chickens accomplishing nothing productive.

Instead, they are strong and vested members of various communities with various backgrounds who have had enough and are willing to challenge a compromised status quo. Their bravery will go nowhere, of course, and rarely has, if only the few forthright ones come forth with no support of great majorities, and this is where it gets interesting.

In Christian circles, it is very easy to single out the one or two with an honest willingness to live for the Lord and speak the truth. It is easy to turn a church against them. There are long-held traditional ways in which to do this and the perpetrators are very good at it. They know how to make themselves look good and make those who follow the Lord look bad. One simple method is to activate the church gossips to stir up the people. This has always proven to be quite effective.

But at present, there are far too many real Christians coming forth. They cannot be treated in the usual way. Rather than the usual occurrence of a few coming forward and getting quickly slammed and eliminated, as had happened with Stephen, there are now too many real Christians to be dealt with in the usual dismissive and indifferent manner. Not only are they too numerous, they are too informed. Much groundwork has been done over the last few years exposing corrupt leadership. Corrupt leadership has actually been forced by powerful former witnesses to reform themselves, but they only do it incrementally, as their heart is not in it.

An overall general reform has come forth but only exists as a foundation of sorts at present from which much greater reform can take place now and in the future. Also, there are many, many more real Christians on the cusp of coming forth. They are just waiting for the right time or inspiration. Their minds are made up. They are fed up. They want to do the right thing. All these people know that real reform must happen.

A SPIRITUAL EXAMPLE

There was a time when the Lord sent me to a new church, but it took a lot of work to get me there. Here is how He did it:

I was a member in good standing in a previous church. It was borderline large and a few years later achieved mega church status, largely built on the persona of the preacher. (No! Really?) I had a good record there and many friends and associates who respected me. I did what I was told. I went through all the proper channels and obeyed church protocol. But I was also following the Lord and this caused a problem. Over time the leadership there, composed of one man and the usual yes men, developed a different opinion. They began to make life difficult. They were revealing their cultish side.

Of course, they treated anyone this way if they did not fall into line and obey whatever they were pushing from on high. They, like so much other entrenched church leadership that continues to exist, some far worse, prefer to operate with smiles and “love” but much of this is mere window dressing. Their exterior can change in a flash. Sometimes their interior is exposed. It is often much different than their exterior. They hide their full personas to protect their real intentions and agenda.

It was certainly not all bad. In many ways it was a great place. But that is not the issue. Many churches do much good. But real disciples of the Lord know the difference between Sunday school and spiritual reality. They know there is a devil and they know the devil goes to church. Even the leadership knows that. But what most Christians don’t know is that the devil is often IN the leadership, something those in power refuse to consider or acknowledge for obvious reasons.

The main objective for the majority of religious establishments is power, control, and money. Otherwise they would look like the Lord and His ministry, but most know they can’t operate that way and must therefore establish other methods to do what they want. Whoever within the congregation that follows the Lord Jesus first and not them is always suspect.

The Lord started telling me to leave. I resisted the Lord. I was far too loyal. I would stay the course. The Lord started sending witnesses my way to tell me to get out of there and go to another church. He knew the leadership in my current place would never support me because I was too much of a challenge even though I did not see myself that way, was struggling to survive, and was only being what the Lord created me to be. Compromised leadership always has a problem with such people. I initially paid no attention to the Lord and did not even know it was the Lord. Nevertheless, some reform was happening. Here is one small example:

The preacher was always talking about money. He was a great preacher. Really gifted. But he was obsessed somewhat with money and was always engaging in small sermonettes on the subject. A friend of mine in another church in a different city far away told me how they collected money in their church. They never took up offerings. Instead, they had a box in the back of the church. Members gave when they gave without any prompting whatsoever or coercing. There was also no condemnation. The church had no money problems. In fact, it was a relatively large church and the preacher took no salary.

I thought this news was very refreshing. I thought it was cool. I mentioned this in passing to a friend in my church one day. I was not saying it to be critical but simply because I thought it was a great idea. He thought so too. I never told the leadership. That was the extent of it. Guess what happened? Within a very short time I came to church one day and there was a large tastefully constructed collection box matching the trim installed on the wall of the vestibule. I kid you not.

There were other things like this.

THE TWO WITNESSES

The Lord sent me a witness. Christians talk about the places they attend. This first witness brought my attention to a new church. The Lord was directing me to it. I had never heard of it. That was the purpose of the first witness. This person had no idea what was going on and was not in any way trying to proselytize that I know of, but merely giving an excellent report in conversation and probably had no idea the Lord was in it. I didn’t know it was the Lord.

Then the Lord sent me a second witness. The two witnesses did not know each other. This second witness, which came several weeks later, was a man of excellent character. Like the first, this was not an overt witness either because the man didn’t even know what the Lord was doing in reference to me. But he happened to mention the church he was attending. It was the same church.

It got me thinking. He put the place on the map, so to speak, and made it a distant possibility. No other church ever came up in conversation like this. But I was still adamant about being loyal and not leaving my current church, even though life kept getting more difficult. It got so difficult that I was forced to change anyway and make relatively desperate moves.

We left. We needed support but there was no support coming and never would be. This is what the Lord had been warning me about. He tried to get me to make a shift earlier before things got worse. He knew I was open to attack and was no longer covered even though I should have been and never warranted their behavior. The leadership there was actually reacting to my calling and not necessarily me personally. Their cold shoulder made me vulnerable, the enemy attacked, my life was going downhill, and they took that as a sign that I was not worth supporting. This, obviously, was not financial support but merely the support all believers should have from their community. I was actually supporting them. I had worked hard and had given a lot of money that was earned with difficulty. I gave by the Lord’s direction. I even supported a new building program financially and donated free labor.

But again, they did not appreciate my calling. The Lord was bringing conviction upon the leadership and they didn’t like it. They reacted by turning against one of the messengers. Incidentally, in my time there the leadership began making big moves to correct their financials. I had never seen that before.

After being forced out through the usual cold shoulder church tactics and due to the Lord increasingly withholding His blessing as a way to get me to move on, I spent months mulling my options and trying to figure out the next step. During this time, the strangest thing happened. The Lord began blessing. I wasn’t even going to church. It involved quite a dramatic change for the better. Just getting out of there allowed the Lord to bring blessing. He was making a way.

THE THIRD WITNESS

Six months later I came into contact with the third witness. Remember, the Lord had already blessed me with two clear witnesses over a year earlier. The third witness hit the ball out of the park. It was amazing. The Lord Jesus is always faithful! I had never met the man. He was a well-known minister from a different city with an excellent reputation and also had no knowledge whatsoever of my past situation with the other church. By this time I had pledged to never attend any church ever again and I was maintaining that line of thought as a mature follower of the Lord overly loyal to a fault.

Completely out of the blue, the third witness suggested to me that I look up a good friend of his. This friend of his was a church pastor. He just happened to be the pastor of the very church the other two witnesses had been telling me about! I was in a very large locality with hundreds of churches. The odds of this happening without the Lord’s direct involvement were absolutely impossible. It had been the Lord’s plan all along but my own misplaced loyalty had been getting in the way.

THE STEPHEN EFFECT

The lesson to be learned here might be called the Stephen Effect. Because Stephen was so powerfully anointed and filled with the Spirit of the Lord, the religious idiots he revealed could not hide. If he had said nothing at all they still would have been greatly uncomfortable just being around him. They were powerfully convicted. Compromised Christian leadership acts exactly the same way. It is why they attempt to get rid of people that make them feel convicted.They would much rather be surrounded by adoring fans.

Most Christians refuse to make the connection that this is exactly the way the Lord makes us all feel if we are not right with Him. He convicts us. He does it to help us. He does it to purify the Church.

Since the Lord convicts us, should we get rid of Him?

Christian leadership almost always rejects the spirit of reform, especially when it comes from someone they do not respect or from the outside. But what else can the Lord do? They have already taken control of everything inside. The Lord must always send someone from outside.

Isn’t this always the case? Is not this the true nature of a prophet? Isn’t this exactly why Hebrew leadership was always killing Hebrew prophets? Those who were sent by God? Isn’t that exactly why they killed the Lord?

STEPHEN THE WHISTLEBLOWER

Why was Stephen even brought to trial before the mighty Sanhedrin in the first place? What in the world did he do that was so bad? What law did he break? How did he violate the Torah? What did he do that was so wrong that it got him killed? Could it possibly be that his chief offense was provoking conviction?

And Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people. But some men from what was called the Synagogue of the Freedmen, including both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and some from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and argued with Stephen. But they were unable to cope with the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking.

Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.” And they stirred up the people, the elders and the scribes, and they came up to him and dragged him away and brought him before the Council. [Acts 6:8-12][1]

When John the Immerser blasted onto the scene he warned his hearers of losing eternal life and loosing national destruction. The means of avoiding both was encapsulated in one word: REPENT.

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REPENTANCE DRIVES GREAT AWAKENINGS

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” [Matthew 3:7-10]

John did something then that next to no American Christian does today: He blasted the religious leaders. These were men who had total control of the religious establishment in first-century Judea. They controlled the entire Temple complex. They controlled every single synagogue. Their control was such that John was preaching way out in the wilderness.

In today’s terms these would be the religious leaders who control denominations, churches, seminaries, and major Christian media, including publishing and television. The Pharisees and Sadducees had a lock on all things religious back then just as Christian controllers have a lock on most things Christian at present. Both have a single denominator: MONEY.

ONLY TWO GODS FROM WHICH TO CHOOSE

Getting to the root of Christian intention begins with the simple question: Is it serving the Lord Jesus or is it serving the money-god?

“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Him. [Luke 16:13-14]

One will either submit to the Lord Jesus and make money a servant, or one will submit to the money-god and make oneself its servant.

If one serves the Lord, one’s life will look increasingly as being under the primary influence of the Lord and His teachings. If one serves the money-god, one’s life will look increasingly as being under the primary influence of the money-god and its teachings.

Here’s is a quick contrast and illustration: John the Immerser served the Lord. His life looked like the Lord. The Pharisees and Sadducees served the money-god. Their lives looked like the money-god. Compare both to the present.

John warned everybody, but especially the brood of vipers otherwise known as the Pharisees and Sadducees, that the entire nation was about to suffer complete destruction for one principle reason: IT CHOSE THE MONEY GOD.

Money can make you and it can break you. If there was a way to exist without it we would never have to deal with its powerful influence and temptation. We would never have to submit to its effects. But the international money system has been with us a while and unless we somehow manage to go completely off the grid we have little choice but to enter the game and play according to the rules.

It is for this reason that most people believe there is no escape and the only solution is to try to gain as much money as possible in order to gain the upper hand. In other words, the way people think they can beat the powerful effect of money on their lives is to defeat it by gaining enough of it that it no longer rules them but becomes their servant.

This works for some people. For a while. It never works for the vast majority. The system has limited resources. Some are able to gain the upper hand and remain relatively personally free or at least maintain the appearance of freedom, and do not seem on the surface to be anxious regarding money matters. If one does win the money battle by doing whatever they feel they must to gain authority over it by having much of it, it rarely lasts. One must keep doing whatever it takes to gain access to the money well. Most do it legally. Some do not. But even if one does find a way to beat the system, so to speak, and gain great piles of gold, one cannot leave this world with it. It must all stay right here where one found it.

MONEY IS NO GOOD OVER YONDER

It has been said that rich people don’t have armored trucks full of money following their hearse to the graveyard. Money does not translate into eternity. To the degree that one depends on money is to the same degree that one does not depend on the Lord. This equation portends one’s final location in the afterworld and often whether one even believes in an afterworld.

One of the best things that can ever happen to a person is to discover early on in life that the pursuit of money for the purposes of mastering life is a heartbreaker. The money-god is a deceiving, bewitching taskmaster. It is a hard lesson to learn. It can be quite cruel. On the other hand, if money always comes relatively easy then the odds of having a spiritual life with the Lord are next to zero. Most people will always choose much money over a disciplined spiritual life. Here’s why:

Making the decision to give oneself totally to the Lord involves:

(1) Faith in the Lord Jesus instead of faith in the money-god and all it portends.

(2) The need to repent, which means one must accept the fact that one is a sinner and a violator of God’s laws and commandments. Who wants to do that? Especially in these days? To admit that one is messed up like this, that one is not the great person he or she thinks he or she is can have a devastating effect on one’s psyche. And yet the Lord is persistent. He says that prior to our born again experience we are sinners. He says we violate His laws. He says we have uncircumcised flesh that must be dealt with. This fleshly nature is not always on display but certainly reveals itself on occasion, with some people much more than others, especially when under stress.

TEST AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS RIGHT

A simple test to prove God is right and humans are compromised in this way is to simply see how often we violate the Golden Rule. Do we always treat others the way we want to be treated? Do we do this especially when we are stressed out or under a lot of pressure? Do we always contain the pressure that builds up, find a way to keep it from building up, manage to channel it off in some safe way in which nobody is hurt, or even stop it completely in the very beginning? Do we always master our impulses? Do we have impulse control or do we simply vent all the time everyday at everybody?

If so, it is the opposite of real discipleship and thoroughly proves the need for heart circumcision surgery and real repentance. It proves the Lord knows exactly what He is talking about though many people may successfully hide their true nature. Occasional mess-ups are understandable. A lifestyle of trashing others and violating the Lord’s teachings is not.

The Lord looks on the heart, not the outward appearance. He is not fooled by outward appearances. He knows what a dirty, fleshy, sinful, uncircumcised heart looks like. It doesn’t matter how much one may try to cover it up and deceive people about one’s true nature. God knows. And He demands that we fix it! The Pharisees and Sadducees fooled almost everyone because they dressed to look the part. They were mere religious actors. That’s what hypocrites are—stage players. Is it any wonder then that the majority of Christian leadership at present does all its work on a stage? What would they be without the stage? It was money that made the Pharisees and Sadducees successful. They served the money-god while pretending to serve God. IT IS EXACTLY THE SAME TODAY. God is not fooled.

A FOOL’S PARADISE

If there appears to be a way around the repentance and discipleship the Lord demands, most people, including most Christians, will do the end run. They will run from God. They will find substitutes in which they can keep themselves in charge. They will choose counterfeit belief systems, of whatever variety, in which they do not have to submit to the Lord. They will try to convince themselves and everyone else that they are good people.

Of course, they are playing a fool’s game. There is no other way than the way the Lord Jesus prescribed. Better to find this out early in life than to build one’s house on sand, but most people always end up building their house on sand and it works great as long as everything remains constant. But we all should know this is ridiculous. Next to nothing in this life remains constant. Change is ever-burgeoning, is always messing up the best laid plans, and the tide always comes in and wipes out sand castles no matter how well or elaborately they are constructed. Wise people know this. Yet, there are apparently not many wise people when it comes to applying known knowledge if it clashes with one’s authority.

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” [Luke 9:24]

Real repentance is the end of one’s personal authority. What unrepentant religious leaders do not know, however, is that they do not have any personal authority anyway because they are bound by sin. And they are deceived about it. Sin is in charge but they are not aware. They reject the notion. They are not accountable. Most are spiritual adulterers. It is why they refuse to preach the real Gospel. It is why the Lord stated what He did in the preceding verse. The word “lose” in that verse is translated from the Greek word apollumi. This word means “to destroy.” It is only by losing one’s life (or destroying it) through real repentance and submitting fully to the Lord Jesus that one breaks the power of sin and the powerful grip of the money-god. The Lord gave His very life to set us free from this monster.

OPPOSING THE GREAT AWAKENING

Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion states: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

As did John the Immerser, the Lord warned the people of His nation that total destruction was soon coming and that it was coming because they rejected His love and leadership for the love of money. The more He attempted to bring forth a Great Awakening the more the religious leaders who were sold out to the money-god opposed Him. Their continued rejection of the Lord and His real teachings, their intransigent rebellion against truth, their refusal to repent, and their worship of mamônâi brought forth a witch’s brew of arrogance, ignorance, and religious pride. It increasingly enflamed their wicked uncircumcised hearts and removed all semblance of impulse control. They sowed the seed of murder and reaped over a million deaths. Literally.

THROWN INTO THE FIRE

As time marched on toward 70AD, they became ever more strident in their opposition to the Lord. They were incorrectly fulfilling Newton’s Third Law of Motion. They were resisting that which they should have surrendered to and surrendering to that which they should have resisted. They had a completely different agenda. Their persecution of the Lord’s people—those who chose the Lord as Messiah—increased dramatically. They were doing to them, on an ever-advancing scale, exactly what they did to the Lord.

The same dynamic is at work today. Christian Pharisees and Sadducees look great on the outside and preach what sounds like the real Gospel. They don’t look compromised. They look successful. They’ve been in control seemingly forever. Their status quo rendition of official Christianity appears as the only accepted rendition, but it has little or no resemblance to the Lord’s original and has almost zero impact within the spiritual world. They can’t handle anything they can’t control. They can’t handle anything that exposes them as pretenders. They can’t handle anything from which they cannot extract a living. It would be good if they could learn from the past.

Judea had been in the midst of a Great Awakening during that final generation in the first century and the religious leaders continually put much effort toward their opposition to it. The more they tried to stop it the more it grew and yet they could never stop opposing it. Their unrighteous stand for the old dead religious order—the only one they could control, the one that gave them power and wealth—was thoroughly compromised by a love of money and service to the money-god. Their unrighteous rebellion must eventually end. Their opposing reaction to God’s action must finally stop. Justice was demanded. Only God could administer it. He did. Judea was no more. Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed, by fire, exactly as John prophesied.

“The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” [Matthew 10:10][1]

The Real Great Awakening is a movement of the great rejected majority. It has nothing to do with the Christian Establishment.

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THAT’S WHY THEY’RE PROFESSIONALS

People wonder how elected officials go to Washington and become completely different people. Many of them are all fiery on the campaign trail and espouse great ideas. They get the electorate all charged up. Then they go to that bizarre world we call our nation’s capital and seemingly metamorphose back into caterpillars, going in the opposite direction of all their campaign rhetoric.

It is no different with the professional minister. They have the ENTIRE platform. They can say and do anything they want. There is no real opposition in the pews, unless you count the usual contentious minions getting their panties in a wad over some useless personal minutia or some guy with more money and influence who demands a return on his investment and stroking of his pride.

This kind of garbage and so much more has been going on within the framework on this non-New Testament form since it was forced upon us so many centuries ago. The idea that the “men of the cloth” have predominant standing and must be honored at all times has only given rise to the same uber-cloaked Pharisaical super-class monster the Lord Jesus had to battle almost every day of His ministry. And of course it was the greatest of that idiot class way up there in Jerusalem land that eventually killed Him, ridding the world in their minds of one more rabble-rousing religious outsider determined to expose them and bring in the fresh winds of truth and God’s original intentions.

We see this same thing happening again today. As I have already stated in recent posts, Donald Trump would never have gotten elected without the millions of Christians who decided to leave their galley oars, defy their wimpy leadership, and do their part to stem the great tide of evil washing over the land. It remains to be seen, of course, just how much Donald Trump will honor the promises he made to Christians on the campaign trail, especially in light of the current trail of traditional usuals he is appointing to his cabinet. It could be that he has no other choice, that the Republicans will refuse to confirm any prospective official not of their choosing.

One thing is for sure, however, and that is that Trump will continue being Trump, even if Washington also ties him down like all the others and he is only able to affect minimal change. At the very least it will be change in the right direction.

SARAH PALIN

No candidate in the history of American politics has ever been as pilloried, hated, and politically destroyed as was Sarah Palin beginning eight years ago. The invective against her was so over the top and off the wall it can only be understood in spiritual terms. The devil obviously hates her with a passion. But God loves her. I use her as an example here because what happened to her is the same thing that happened to Donald Trump during the recent campaign. The reason he prevailed is in part because he was much more tested over his long life politically even though he was not a politician. He has always had constant run-ins with the press and establishment leaders. He never considered these entities as superior. In fact, all the politicians (and who knows who else) were always begging him for money. (Wow. THAT sounds familiar.) I am not vouching for his past misdeeds but only stating that he has always been a fighter. He knew how to fight and was willing to fight. His success proves that.

But his victory in the 2016 election was largely paved by the fight Sarah Palin faced. He saw what they did to her and knew he would face the same kind of fight but I still don’t think he had any idea how bad it would get. He really owes Palin for what she endured.

And now it comes out that Sarah Palin is so thankful that so many millions of Christians came out in support of Trump, because she knows that didn’t happen for her eight years ago. This was especially true of wimpy Christian leadership. She was classy about it then and never said anything, but this is what she had to say about it this Thanksgiving:

She added a personal note, something she said she’s never talked about in public before: “I was very grateful to see that the church stepped up, because eight years ago, I felt that they didn’t. Besides the attacks on my family and supporters, the most hurtful thing about the election, the vilification, the marginalization, the ridicule that hit us – my family and me, eight years ago – was that I didn’t feel that the church did circle the wagons and step up boldly and say, ‘What? No, that’s not what she’s saying,’ or ‘That’s not what she represents.’ Because some of them knew me.”

“A lot of these famous pastors, and people all over the country, right after the election were sending me their secret confidential little love notes about, ‘Oh, you know, my heart was with ya, and you know if there’s ever anything I can do for you, just let me know, because I believe in you, and I believed in you during the election, I’m so sorry what you went through.’ And would sit there reading this stuff, saying, ‘Well, where were you? Why didn’t you step up? You’re going to have to step up next time, or that next person is going to go down too,” she remembered sadly.

Christians in general did indeed step up but the great majority of the professional ministers did indeed not step up.

THE JOHNSON AMENDMENT

During the campaign, when Donald Trump was having closed meetings with Christian celebrities and professional ministers (and the few regular Christians who somehow made it in), he stated his amazement that so many of them never engaged in the fight and never had for multiple decades. He wondered at their wimpy silence. Then one of these Christian church professionals brought up the Johnson Amendment. They told him they were not allowed to speak politically from their pulpits. They explained why. Until 1954 they had that right but Lyndon Johnson and the IRS took it away.

And I say, Well, the Lord Jesus never took it away. You guys are the ones who insisted on buying into the Church Charter business and the IRS-mandated 501c3. Outside of that strange convention Christians can say anything they want. Besides, political speech is often the greatest of speech. America was founded on free political speech. It was the great outspoken patriots who stood up and spoke out politically who brought forth the American Revolution!

THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY WITH FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND ALL YOU WIMP PROFESSIONALS BOUGHT INTO A SYSTEM THAT REMOVES YOUR VOICE. Why? Because you couldn’t make a living otherwise, that’s why. You could only get your massive donations and the donators could only get their tax write-offs through an official government-sponsored religious set-up. By buying into this false paradigm you also ended up eliminating the voices of everyone else within your establishments, so the net results of your selling out is mass spiritual silence, the very opposite of what the Lord commanded us.

YOU SOLD YOUR FREE SPEECH BIRTHRIGHT AS CHRISTIAN LEADERS FOR A BOWL OF DONATION STEW.

That’s why I will continue to report that this current early Great Awakening is a movement of regular nobody real believers who have thrown off the pew and all the other church-related resistance factors. It is not and cannot be a movement that includes the snowflake professional ministers who will only preach in their government-mandated safe spaces with absolutely no opposition from anyone anywhere including the pews. If they were doing what they should be doing they would be getting the Sarah Palin treatment. They would be getting slammed by the devil. Praise God that Sarah Palin stepped up to the plate when she did. She has more FIGHT than most professional ministers put together, including all those big mouth fakers on TV. She paved the way for Trump.

CLEANSING THE TEMPLE

Now, in case you are wondering about Trump seemingly waffling on his campaign promises, it could very well be the case that he’s taking a higher road at present. Also, he might need a lot of help in getting rid of the Johnson Amendment. He will need the help of Congress and many others. If he doesn’t get it done, however, the only ones it should affect are the professional ministers and compromised Christians. They will continue to make the excuse that they can’t speak up, the same way they always have. It is very convenient for them now and would continue to be. Whatever. They have already proven themselves over many decades to be irrelevant wimps. The country has gone down on their watch. They should be ashamed of themselves. Great massive sin has descended, the devil has taken more control, and their presence has done little to stem the tide.

No, it was the millions of American Christians who left the reservation either bodily or in mind that made the difference. The same current anti-Establishment attitude against the entrenched political class has also been brewing in real Christian circles now for a few decades against the entrenched professional minister class. Christians are tired of being led by irrelevant sissies. They’re tired of being dictated to by sell-outs. They want the temple cleansed. They want to be led by the Lord Jesus.

And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.” [John 2:14-16] [1]

The Lord Jesus commanded us to be excellent disciples. We must be fully trained. The majority of Christians refuse this command. Most Christians are willfully immature.

“A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.” [Luke 6:40]

IGNORANCE IS BLINDNESS

Some people have very low IQs. Their intelligence level is not their fault. There are low IQ people in the world who have achieved masterfully. I believe the Lord is proud of them. I believe the Lord is proud of anyone who overcomes against great odds to achieve great things. He taught many times in His parables on this theme. He implied clearly that it is never about what a person may start out with but what a person achieves even though the odds are stacked against success.

Most such people do not achieve, of course, which only makes those who do stand out all the more in showing what is actually possible.

Some people start well but are shut down repeatedly by circumstances not under their control. But they refuse to stay shut down. They get back up, are knocked down, get back up, then something comes against them from out in left field and knocks them down again. They think a minute, get their bearings, refuse to be defeated, and get right back up. They start to figure out that as long as they get back up and go at it again they have a chance. But they also start to see that every time they get back up after the enemy tries to destroy them that the enemy has less power.

It is the same with disciples of the Lord Jesus. These are the real Christians. They take the Lord’s commands and instructions seriously. They are thanked for their great desire to do right by God by being attacked all the more. And for those who know and have been through it, the very worst attacks are those by friends.

Why do some Christians act like first-class asses? Why are some Christians filled with so much hate? There are reasons, you know. Here’s one of them:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? [Matthew 23:29-33]

This exact dynamic has been playing out for a very long time among Christian adherents though most of it has gone unacknowledged or is completely unseen. It is unseen due to ignorance. Many Christians are ignorant because they refuse to obey the Lord and do their proper work. When Christians refuse to be real disciples they become ignorant of spiritual things. This ignorance creates a wall. The wall shields them from the truth. They can’t see it. They become blind to truth. Then they act out on what they know, which is not much, and attempt to defend their place of ignorance and laziness, which is not defendable. Then they resort to anger and hate to defend themselves. Thus they become not only all the more stupid but all the more close-minded and hateful.

We know what happens with human inbreeding. We know that inbreeding causes problems and if it is not stopped the problems grow worse over time. The people thereof become more prone to mutations and disease. Inbreeding is not healthy.

The same thing happens with Christian denominations and churches. If there is no free flow of the Holy Spirit, no new ideas, knowledge, or new applications, no cross-pollination, and especially no emphasis on obeying and following the Lord and walking in real discipleship, the people thereof will grow spiritually stupid and ignorant of the Word of God. They become stagnant. They become inbred. They see their little place as the entire world. They see everyone else as inferior. This inbred condition causes a distrust and hatred of all things and all people unlike themselves. There is only one solution for this terrible condition and dreaded disease:

READ THE WORD OF GOD. STUDY INTENTLY THE PURE TEACHINGS OF THE LORD JESUS. DO THIS ON YOUR OWN. LET IT BE STRICTLY BETWEEN YOU AND THE LORD JESUS.

Anyone who refuses to read the Word of God is deceived. Let me repeat: ANYONE WHO REFUSES TO READ THE WORD OF GOD IS DECEIVED. PERIOD.

They are spiritually blind. It is not possible to see without the one who is able to heal blind eyes and grant sight. It is especially problematic when Christians are thus blind. It is most problematic when Christian leaders are blind. Sadly, there’s a bunch of them. Christian Pharisees are everywhere, hidden in plain sight.

And He also spoke a parable to them: “A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit? [Luke 6:39] [1]

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” [John 13:34-35]

How does one identify a real Christian Pharisee? Like their spiritual forebears of the first century, a Christian Pharisee is initially known primarily by one thing. And this one thing is both an indicator of such a person’s heart, as it is at the core of his or her being, but is also on the immediate surface, and often boils forward to said surface in a rapid flash which defies any possibility of impulse control.

The first indicator of a real Christian Pharisee is therefore no secret whatsoever in that it reveals itself without restraint in all its unchecked fleshly power as it rises quickly for the kill in response to any perceived sleight or lack of absolute respect demanded by such a one for otherwise arbitrary reasons.

Here it is: CHRISTIAN PHARISEES ARE EXTREMELY AND VERY EASILY OFFENDED AND ARE WILLING TO FIGHT ANYONE ANYTIME ANYWHERE AT THE DROP OF A HAT TO PROTECT AND HONOR THEMSELVES AND THE BELIEFS AND TRADITIONS THEY HAVE BOUGHT INTO AND SOLD OUT TO WITH NO REGARD WHATSOEVER FOR THE GOLDEN RULE OR HONORING THE LORD JESUS.

They refuse to engage in any rational dialogue in the sense of arriving at greater truth because they believe they already possess all truth. They refuse and deflect any form of possible persecution by always beating the other person to said persecution and thus becoming the epitome of the persecutor. Their method is one of insistence that they are right, have always been right, and will always be right, and insist that anyone who doesn’t believe what they believe can just as soon go straight to hell.

They believe with all their hearts that they have captured and possess the very top of the pyramid, that they are superior to all, and that all others must comply with their religion or belief system and every part of it, both in dogma and practice, or be remanded to a state of total rejection.

They then project this attitude upon the “god” of their choosing and insist that “god”, their god, is absolutely on their side and only on their side and is also against the same people they are against. They will go to any lengths to destroy anyone who even slightly touches their massive sacred cows and golden calves as if simple murder is nowhere close to being good enough and doesn’t do proper justice to the immense offense perpetrated upon them.

This very thing happened to the real God, the only God, the God of all Creation, when He showed up here as one of us, as a human being, to save us and set us free. Of course, they couldn’t touch Him until He willingly laid down His life on our behalf. Once He made Himself vulnerable, however, His enemies wasted no time in inflicting upon Him the very worst they could offer and if they had the opportunity they would have tortured Him and murdered Him many times over.

It’s right there in your Gospels. It’s all over the New Testament. It’s infused throughout Christian history. It is why the real saints of the Lord always took it on the chin while doing the real work of the Lord and teaching the real Gospel. The incredible and completely unjustified persecution against them identified them as real disciples who acted out of love and for the truth, and it also perfectly identified the haters who would always rather gossip, slander, libel, and defame, and even murder, maim, destroy, and generally go stark raving nuts in defense of their evil hearts and ungodly agendas.

“You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?”[Matthew 23:33][1]

LOVE IS THE FULFILLMENT OF THE LAW

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails…[1Corinthians 13:4-8]

Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, “YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. [Romans 13:8-10]

One of the great things about the Lord Jesus, found in no other, is His ability to simultaneously reveal truth and expose deception. He shines an incredibly BRIGHT, quasar-pulsing LIGHT on the false construct of fallen, sinful mankind upon this planet—in New Testament terms, the world—and destroys the con, the fraud, the sham, and the ruse.

This is why the forces of darkness hate Him so much. They can’t hide. They successfully conceal themselves and their underground, off-the-radar, highly deceptive machinations from everybody else, but not from Him.

This is especially true for religious fraudsters, and most especially true for unreal Christians and fake Christian “leaders,” probably the most self-deceived people on the planet. They act like they know it all but regarding the Lord’s real curriculum and compared to the Acts model, most don’t know squat. Their religious pride and smugness is off the charts.

The Lord’s demand for honesty is also why the Lord Jesus will never allow His own children—real Christians—to construct false images about themselves or be mere posers, as are so many unreal Christians, who must do such to pass themselves off as authentic.

Such faux bros are not authentic but only pretend to be. It is why they do not like close inspection. They are very easily offended by the Lord’s pure light and are greatly convicted by the pure Word of God. They much prefer hobnobbing with other shallow-minded, largely Biblically illiterate (by choice), and appearance-oriented folk due to the obvious comfort factor. Most churches are composed of such pretenders and posers—those who prefer to hide—and is why such places always run off the bright lights who innocently expose their silly shenanigans.

THE PLAGUE OF PHARISEES

Of course, the first-century Pharisees were the masters of the false image medium, and their present-day descendants have maintained this mastery, successfully taking full advantage of modern media. The original Pharisees, however, were not Biblically illiterate, but the very opposite. Neither were they shallow-minded. It is curious then, that they missed the mark so badly. And that’s how the Word of God defines sin, as “missing the mark.”

The Pharisees misfired so badly they not only missed the broad side of every barn known to mankind, but entire galaxies. And yet they considered themselves, among themselves (there was little or no dissenting opinion within their own group regarding their superiority and high standing), as brilliant and as close to God as is humanly possible. (Sound familiar?) And yet the Lord characterized the Jewish non-believers, including the Pharisees mentioned in John 8:13, as thus:

“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” [John 8:44]

Keep in mind that this narrative in John 8 is a purely intra-Jewish dispute—everyone in the chapter was a Jew—which includes the author of the fourth Gospel, traditionally named as John. The Lord Jesus is obviously Jewish, especially since He is from the tribe of Judah. Jews are listed in the chapter as believers in the Lord and also as non-believers by implication. The point, though, is that the Lord was drawing a very distinct contrast between the real and the unreal, and was exposing the false-image fakers for what they really were.

“GRAVEN IMAGES”

This construction of false outer images to deceive an unsuspecting public is one of the principle components of the Lord’s commandment against graven images, which proves the non-believing Jews and Pharisees listed in John 8 were actually grossly violating the Torah, though they did not know it and refused to believe it. They were deceived and even self-deceived by their false interpretation of the Word and their departure from the truth:

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.” [Exodus 20:4]

“You shall not make for yourselves idols, nor shall you set up for yourselves an image or a sacred pillar, nor shall you place a figured stone in your land to bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God.” [Leviticus 26:1]

“So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, so that you do not act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female…” [Deuteronomy 4:15-16][1]

THE WIZARD OF OZ PHENOMENON

The Lord’s children must be real, and that is not easy. Unreal Christians, conversely, must build false images of themselves as a way to pass religious inspection. Unreal Christian leaders also do it to take control and command authority over others, and as a way to enrich themselves.

As I have written in Real Christianity, the most fully formed graven image (or idol) is a LIVING HUMAN BEING.

The man-made, exalted “Christian” clergy class invented itself for this very reason. The members thereof hide behind a curtain of false piety and holiness, and demand undeserved honor and respect, which never matches their actual deeds. The great majority of their clueless followers give them exactly what they want, which means the few who see them as they actually are and attempt to expose them end up receiving what the evil perpetrators should receive. This is in part why the Lord Jesus was crucified. The evil religionist followers, inspired, deceived, and led by evil religious leaders, turned their wrath upon the innocent party to protect the very guilty false-image party.

The same thing happens to real Christian innocent parties at present in so many false Christian venues, as attested to by so many real Christians who have been made to pay for the sins of others.

It has been said, of course, that the devil goes to church. In reality, the devil owns many churches. They are his enterprises and not the Lord’s. In these places he has complete control and does not appreciate the Lord’s shining lights and truth-bearers bringing their witness.

DISCIPLESHIP DEFINES DISTINCTION

How do we know the difference between the real and the unreal? This is what real discipleship is about. The closer we get to the Lord Jesus, the more mature we become in Him. The more knowledgeable we are about His written Word, the more we will get to know and understand the Living Word. The more our relationship with Him matures, the more we will be able to see what He sees, and the more He will reveal to us.

Of course, the enemy doesn’t like being exposed, so any attempt to reveal his false environment for what it is will not be appreciated and will be met with strong hate and extreme prejudice.

This is why innocent and good-hearted real Christians, the only real spiritual children of the Lord, are viciously slammed beyond all reason and out of all proportion. The attacks come from an unseen evil enemy whose only recourse is to engage in wanton character assassination, slander, libel, and even murder.

It is why the Lord was so savagely and hatefully beaten, tortured, and killed, though He never sinned or did anything wrong. It is why Stephen only lasted a few seconds after one of the greatest, anointed, honest, and exposing speeches in Christian history (See Acts 6-7). The enemy was so enraged by the truth pouring forth from Stephen that they even gnashed their teeth at him!

Therefore, if one wonders why the people who are externally friendly, loving, and supportive are suddenly transformed into hating, rejecting, and slandering crazies—something that would otherwise make no sense whatsoever—it most likely reveals the fact that one has exposed a nerve, an ultra-sensitive nerve, and are innocently and often unknowingly exposing a false image—a human front—perhaps created over many years, and also quite possibly a very evil religious spirit.

Such deceiving poser proponents cannot allow anyone to know what they really are, as their entire life is built upon a false foundation. Once exposed, their house of cards will come crashing down very quickly. They will have no leg to stand on. They will explode in a heap. This is why they must attack so viciously against such harmless innocent witnesses. It is also why they must surround and align themselves with birds of a feather—fellow posers—believers in the lie—those who are blind to truth and real morality. The crowd, the congregation, the family, the group—these allow them to hide and access strength they don’t have individually.

Once their attack commences, and once they successfully survive (temporarily) by throwing the honorable party under the bus (or a pile of rocks) and seemingly get away with a huge injustice, the Lord instructed us to leave them alone.

THEY ARE BLIND LEADERS GUIDING THE BLIND AND BOTH WILL EVENTUALLY FALL INTO A VERY DEEP PIT. IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME.

Perhaps from within said pit they will at last see the truth and find salvation.

But as long as they are playing the faker game on the surface they will most likely never repent and find real salvation, since they have already appropriated for themselves a false salvation through a false gospel or counterfeit belief system of their own rendering.

Like the Wizard of Oz, the ruling class has established a powerful and sometimes fearsome image of itself. Its members have set themselves up as the sacred and the laity as the profane. The laity, if brave enough to seek personal needs, whether a heart, courage, or brains, often do so at the feet of the big boys, who have been enormously successful at promoting their big daddy image for centuries. Of course, the laity receives only religious tokens for the most part, if anything at all. The important thing is image. The great Christian controllers must believe that if the laity perceives them as merely human, and not ultrahuman, it would cause such disillusionment within Christendom that a complete breakdown would take place.

But one man’s breakdown and loss of power is another man’s revolution and recovering of freedom. Ask George Washington. Ask Martin Luther. Ask the Lord Jesus Himself. It was the benefactors of the religious clergy spirit of His time who were so incensed by His radical teachings and so petrified over losing control because of His growing movement that they savagely murdered Him, revealing to all, for all time, their true motivation and character.[1]

Make no mistake about it. When the Lord Jesus arrived on the scene he immediately engaged in spiritual war against powerful forces. The human appendages of such forces had discovered centuries before that great power over large populations could be gained in the realm of religion.

Like the rest of the planet, the ancient nation of Israel also suffered from such demonic interlopers and we have the proof of this religious invasion in the historical accounts of the Old Testament scriptures. Israel had devolved from being the pure people of God to a nation of religious hybrids ruled over by bloodthirsty kings set on complete dominance and an overthrow of God’s rule.

By the first century AD the political kings had long since morphed into religious “kings.” The aforementioned paganistic and syncretized religious practices of ancient Israel had by that time become largely congealed under the banner of Pharisaism which was dominated at the top by those whom the Lord referred to as children of the devil. They did not appreciate His terminology.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” [Matthew 23:15]

Though these evildoers did exactly as the evil Israelite kings before them in taking dominion over the populace for their own benefit, the subjugated people felt powerless to overcome. There are two reasons for this:

(1) The people had accepted their lot with a defeatist attitude and simply surrendered to the dominant controlling clique and its rewriting of the Mosaic Code, as the nation of Israel had formerly fallen under the sway of evil civil leaders.

(2) The people had become enchanted by the ultra-human power of religion and got absolutely lost in deception and darkness, unable to see and absolutely unequipped to fight back.

Then, as now, there was only one cure:

“THE LAND OF ZEBULUN AND THE LAND OF NAPHTALI, BY THE WAY OF THE SEA, BEYOND THE JORDAN, GALILEE OF THE GENTILES—THE PEOPLE WHO WERE SITTING IN DARKNESS SAW A GREAT LIGHT, AND THOSE WHO WERE SITTING IN THE LAND AND SHADOW OF DEATH, UPON THEM A LIGHT DAWNED.”

From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” [Matthew 4:15-17][2]

For those who repented, they were able to overthrow the Wizard of Oz that had them trapped, deceived, and bound by joining up with the Lord Jesus. They received “personal needs, whether a heart, courage, or brains.” His pure LIGHT gave them eyes to see. His great LOVE gave them the support and encouragement they lacked. His POWERFUL Holy Spirit gave them strength to fight. His TRUTH set them free.

For our study, this is the difference between Unreal and Real Christianity.

UNREAL CHRISTIANITY:

(1) The people have accepted their lot with a defeatist attitude and have simply surrendered to the dominant controlling clique and its rewriting of the Gospel, as the nation of Israel had formerly fallen under the sway of evil religious leaders.

(2) The people have become enchanted by the ultra-human power of religion and have gotten absolutely lost in deception and darkness, unable to see and absolutely unequipped to fight back.

REAL CHRISTIANITY:

For those who repented, they have been able to overthrow the Wizard of Oz that had them trapped, deceived, and bound by joining up with the Lord Jesus. They have received “personal needs, whether a heart, courage, or brains.” His pure LIGHT has given them eyes to see. His great LOVE has given them the support and encouragement they lacked. His POWERFUL Holy Spirit has given them strength to fight. His TRUTH has set them free.

And He said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’

“But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant.” [Luke 22:25-26]

CAN YOU IDENTIFY THE WOMAN?

But a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head, crushing his skull. [Judges 9:53]

ENMITY BETWEEN SEEDS

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” [Genesis 3:15]

THE WOMAN AND HER RIGHTFUL HUSBAND

The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” [Genesis 2:22-23]

THE ATTACK OF THE DRAGON

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.

Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. [Revelation 12:1-4]

THE RIGHTFUL HUSBAND AND THE INTERLOPER

And great fear came over the whole church, and over all who heard of these things.

At the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people; and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s portico. But none of the rest dared to associate with them; however, the people held them in high esteem.

And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number, to such an extent that they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and pallets, so that when Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on any one of them. Also the people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together, bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all being healed.

But the high priest rose up, along with all his associates (that is the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy. They laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail. [Acts 5:11-18] [1]

Once the trees went forth to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us!’ But the olive tree said to them, ‘Shall I leave my fatness with which God and men are honored, and go to wave over the trees?’

“Then the trees said to the fig tree, ‘You come, reign over us!’ But the fig tree said to them, ‘Shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit, and go to wave over the trees?’

“Then the trees said to the vine, ‘You come, reign over us!’ But the vine said to them, ‘Shall I leave my new wine, which cheers God and men, and go to wave over the trees?’

Finally all the trees said to the bramble, ‘You come, reign over us!’ The bramble said to the trees, ‘If in truth you are anointing me as king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, may fire come out from the bramble and consume the cedars of Lebanon.’” [Judges 9:8-15]

.

The trees that produce good fruit never reign over other trees. Never. They refuse. It is not in their nature. It is not the will of God.

The nature of good trees is to be what they are as God made them and produce good fruit. Good trees do not produce bad fruit. Good trees only produce good fruit.

Only bad trees reign over other trees. Bad trees produce only bad fruit. Some of their bad fruit is the desire to reign over other trees. Only bad trees reign over other trees.

In the above passage from the Book of Judges, three good trees are mentioned:

The Olive Tree

The Fig Tree

The Grape Vine

One bad tree is mentioned: The Bramble.

The Bramble was a thorn bush. It produced no good fruit. It only produced bad fruit. It produced thorns.

“For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit.

“For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush.” [Luke 6:43-44]

CHRISTIANS RULING OVER CHRISTIANS

Good trees producing good fruit NEVER accept the reign over Christians. Only bad trees producing bad fruit reign over Christians.

This is a very difficult concept to understand for Christians since the majority has always been ruled over by other Christians. It seems no matter how many times the Lord Jesus tells the story most Christians just don’t get it. They insist that they must be ruled over by one of their own.

ABIMELECH

In the above passage from the Book of Judges, the people of Shechem chose Abimelech, The Bramble, as their king.

The name Abimelech literally means, “father is king,” or “Melek (“king”) is father.”

Abimelech was one of Gideon’s 70 sons. In his attempt to become the sole king and rightful heir of his father, he killed every single one of his brothers except one: Jotham escaped.

It was Jotham, the lone survivor, who told the Parable of the Trees.

Abimelech was eventually mortally wounded by a woman who dropped a big rock on his head, crushing it. Yet, so that it would not be said he was killed by a woman, he commanded his armor bearer to run him through with his sword.

CAN YOU IDENTIFY THE WOMAN?

But a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head, crushing his skull. [Judges 9:53]

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“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” [Genesis 3:15]

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“Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.

“But the greatest among you shall be your servant.

“Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.” [Matthew 23:10-13][1]

Real Christianitywas originally written twenty years ago. Everything I said then has come true or is in the process of coming true. However, the book remains as fresh as if it was published yesterday.

The reason real Christians still continue to struggle two decades later is not because the enemy has not been identified. It has been. I revealed in the book exactly who the enemy is and who continues to powerfully resist the truth and the consequent spiritual freedom and power the Lord Jesus is bringing forth.

The enemy is not far. In fact, exactly as the Lord Jesus taught, the bad guys are right next to the good guys. The enemy is intermingled among us exactly as all those invisible fallen angels the Lord Jesus saw and outed. He revealed them. They could not hide from Him as they did from everyone else. And as we continue on toward the Great Awakening, both the invisible fallen angels of our time and their “invisible” human counterparts will be increasingly exposed.

You will know them by their fruits.

“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.” [Matthew 7:15-20][1]

Jesus has always maintained a remnant of true believers within the earth. His Qahal has never ceased to exist.

Though only a small minority compared to the vast collection of Christian adherents in the world, its members continue to honor their Messiah as did the upper-roomers. However, since the Lord’s community has never been concerned with geopolitics, the forced subjugation of people groups, or the writing of very subjective chronicles, it has faded from historical view. Even if this knowledge cannot be satisfactorily documented for the skeptics among us, the fact of the matter is that the characteristics of the first Christian community, the prototype, remain extremely different from most of the churches and church organizations throughout history and modern times, both in practice and doctrine. Christians continue to be tied to structures promoting dual class division and institutional formats which have little to do with real Christianity. Christians have largely rejected the work of their most distant ancestors, and have lost due respect for the truths they taught, and the One who taught them.

Will we continue to be so blind and arrogant that we place the blame for this fact on them, rather than ourselves? They are the ones who built the foundation. They are the ones who paid in blood to set the example which all successive generations were to follow. If their very immature spiritual juniors of the present continue in this vein of quiet mockery and religious complacency, the Unreal Church of the Conformed will grow even larger with greater determination against truth. In fact, the bloody persecution of real Christians will expand from the present hell-holes of this world and will soon go international. Every nation will take part. The greatest enemies of the present day community of called-out ones, however, are not modern Herods and Neros, but modern religionists intent on protecting their turf. And who are these chief persecutors? Who are the new Christian Pharisees? In what form do they exist today? Who are the ones influenced by the same spirit that gave Saul of Tarsus his commission to fight the Church? Such deceived ones are much closer to all of us than we think. Through their resolute and unwavering stand for their chosen form of Christianity, they have allowed themselves to become the very image of the unreal.

I have written extensively on the subject of the Clergy-Laity Division. My book, Real Christianity, delves deeply into the issue. Though the following excerpt from the book is relatively brief, it presents the historical and Biblical essence of the Clergy-Laity Division in Christianity and helps every believer to discover how it negatively affects his or her Christian experience and discipleship.

Speaking of which, I highly recommend buying the book. It has received excellent reviews. [Please see the above *AUTHOR / BOOK* tab for more information.] Its pages are loaded with truth that reveals this Divide and Conquer tactic and so many other methods of the enemy that strive to limit and even stop the progress of the Lord’s real community.

By the Middle Ages, the Christian upper class as a whole had grown much more stealthy and clandestine, gained access to greater monetary sources, and amassed more political power than it had probably ever imagined. Eventually, these classes developed titles. You know them today as the clergy and the laity.

One must note that this split did not take place within the Lord’s Qahal.[1]Jesus never created rank among His children. Class division began in the unreal assembly, and we can trace its origin all the way back to the times of the apostles. As a matter of fact, Paul referred to its propagators as false apostles:

“For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.” [2 Corinthians 11:13-15]

A few verses later, Paul wrote of their management practices, especially of the way they exalted themselves over their congregations:

Keeping in mind the fact that the real community of believers was woven together by love and that they comprised a body, those who submitted to the false apostles were obviously not loved by their leaders, nor were their congregations unified in the Spirit. The word “exalt” in the former verse is from the Greek word epairo (ep-ahee’-ro). It means “to lift up, raise up, or raise on high,” or in other words, to exalt oneself in pride. Jesus instructed His people that the greater leader must be the greater servant and must cloak himself in ever greater amounts of humility. These false apostles did just the opposite, being true to their actual nature.

After many centuries, the clergy-laity division became standard practice even among those church bodies which gained greater access to truth. The division has remained in most churches to date due only to carried-over tradition and an apparent lack of knowledge regarding the Lord’s proper format.[2]

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The Divide and Conquer tactic employed by Unreal Christianity was brilliant. As avowed enemies of the Lord Jesus, it put the Christian Pharisees in complete control and regulated 99% of the congregation to wasting away in the pews as ineffectual clergy supporters rather than real disciples of the Lord Jesus:

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When the splitting of community became official, it easily did more to thwart God’s plan for evangelizing the world than anything else man has devised. The reason why is simple—ninety-something percent of the membership was removed from the process. The “laity”[3]was deemed unqualified for officially ordained Christian service and, consequently, unworthy of receiving God’s call. Yet, there was a time when all believers heard the call of God, and each person heard it from Jesus Himself.

At the present, due to the entrenched tradition of the clergy-laity division, many Christians never consider the possibility of devoting their lives to God because they have been made to think that God only chooses certain rare holy ones for His work. If this is true, the Lord is breaking His own commandment by judging a good many people as unqualified before they ever get a chance to prove themselves. [See Matthew 7:1]

The only thing which actually disqualifies a person from ministry is the same thing which disqualifies him from membership in the Church, and that is simply a lack of full commitment to the absolute Lordship of Jesus. There is nothing inherent within any sincere believer which disqualifies him or her from the Lord’s service—somebody else’s service yes, but not the Lord’s. Every Christian needs to know that all legitimate calls to ministry come only from the Lord, and each should be encouraged to find his or her place of service. There are abundant ministry needs to address, very few who feel worthy to address them, and many who were discouraged from entering the Lord’s service by inept ministers who were more than likely never called themselves, at least, not by God.

Ironically, many headstrong individuals or those with improper motives feel all too worthy. Their self-willed attitude would suggest that they usually never hear God’s call at all, but one much more personal. Such high-minded ones see golden opportunities to use religious structures, systems, and especially people to pad their own nest or at least find a niche… [4]

[3]This word originates from the New Testament Greek word laos (lah-’os). It is defined as a people group, whether socio-political, socio-religious, or cultural-ethnic. It generally refers to the “common people,” as a crowd, a populace, or a nation. It is also used as the people of God. When used in the latter sense, it means all of the people collectively. It is easy to see how the meaning of this word was corrupted when class division entered Christianity.

Dictionary.com has chosen the word Identity as its 2015 word of the year.

Miriam-Webster’s word of the year isn’t a word—it’s a suffix: -ism

The word looked up most often was Socialism.

FRACTURING THE POPULACE

I haven’t done much research on why such words were chosen but their choices are appropriate regarding the further push by several groups toward fracturing the American populace through identity politics.

The accuracy of these choices reflects the ongoing overly selfish attitudes of current agendas and movements, and an ever-growing rejection of practicing the Golden Rule:

One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”

And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND. This is the great and foremost commandment.

“The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” [Matthew 22:35-40]

SOCIAL SUICIDE

The overwhelming advancing avalanche of ubiquitous social media over the last few years has actually resulted in the very opposite of a cohesive society. Rather than the long-held acceptance of a national American identity in which one is proud of one’s country, America is being destroyed from within through the social suicide of societal conflict and internecine warfare.

Imagine the members of a professional baseball team suddenly turning on one another on the field of play with fights breaking out between individual players of the same squad. Instead of the usual bench-clearing brawl when members of opposing teams fight each other to protect one’s teammates, what is currently taking place in America is the equivalent of teammates fighting one another toward the complete destruction of the team.

The promotion of the individual member over the team constitutes no team and an impossibility of success. While it is true that individual rights are sacred and America is a very diverse country, it does not mean that the interests of the individual must always rule over and rule out the social construct of the nation since such aberrant behavior will only result in the eventual destruction of the society itself. We must love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We may all believe different things but must also believe in national unity. And national unity must never be coerced.

THE COMMUNITY OF THE LORD JESUS

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.[Acts 9:31]

The only unity that will survive all attacks against it from both within and without is the community created 2,000 years ago by the Lord Jesus. It is a union based on love and respect for both the Lord first and for one another. It is held together by the Spirit of God. When individual members go beyond their individual mandates, divisions will appear which must be healed. Such healing is always possible through the promotion of the community itself but never against the rights of the individual.

THE COMMUNITY IS ONLY AS STRONG AS IT’S INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS

However, this never means that each individual must be coerced into forced compliance and come under strong-armed religious control, since such an agenda will result in the complete ineffectiveness of each person who is called and gifted by the Lord.

There must be balance. There must be harmony. The individual members of the Lord’s community are called to love and serve one another and this necessitates a humble attitude shared by all.

We are currently seeing the opposite of this attitude in America within virtually every segment of society. It obviously includes “Christian” segments, which are often the worst violators. Christian denominations have been some of the worst violators of spiritual community in history and their legacy lives on in the present. Most “Christian” churches are obvious violators of individual spiritual freedom in that they not only coerce everyone to obey their false religious programs but refuse the authority of the Lord Jesus as well. The Lord’s sheep are supposed to follow HIM and real Christians do because they each recognize the Lord Jesus as their Shepherd.

“But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

“A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” [John 10:2-5]

Most “Christians,” however, have chosen other shepherds to follow, and honor them instead of the Lord Jesus. Ultimate blame for the breaking up of the nation can be laid in part on such false and powerless “Christian” religious models with counterfeit leaders which possess only superficial community and which effectively destroy real spiritual unity. Regarding the present fracturing of America, Unreal Christianity has set an excellent example toward that end. Nothing good will come of such social and spiritual unraveling through the promotion and glorification of religious strong men.

Identity politics might have had a somewhat meaningful and necessary beginning forty years ago, but it has resulted at present in nothing more than a ripping apart of the American fabric. It causes governmental force to increase to protect society overall and such government overreach eventually destroys all individual rights. Therefore, there is no doubt that such societal division is being fostered and promoted by elite powers hiding behind the curtain, whose goal is to destroy the abilities and means of free individuals to maintain their individual liberty, strength, and abilities, and who would otherwise create a greater community to overcome their evil machinations.

WHY DO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES LOOK AND ACT LIKE MEGA CHURCH PASTORS?

The strong man is taking over. But this exact dynamic has already taken place among the majority of “Christian” churches and ministries. Think about that when considering the origins and rise of the antichrist.

A slow motion explosion, based on false identity politics, is our current track. It began several years ago with an outbreak of narcissism based on false praise for all, regardless of their lack of meaningful individual accomplishment which would otherwise promote proper praise.

It ends when such recipients of false praise promote one of their own—THE ULTIMATE DESTRUCTIVE NARCISSIST, as has already happened in part and will continue—since they identify with such a one, and thus promote the strong man toward the destruction of society.

Such social engineering never works. Such societies and communities always destroy themselves.

And though the coming antichrist will achieve his long desired One World Government, One World Economy, One World Religion, and One World Everything Else sitting as the god of this orb high atop his pyramid, his evil kingdom won’t last long. Ruin always follows such hubris.

And He said to them, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.” [Luke 10:18] [1]

The seeds of destruction germinate best in the -isms of lies, pride, and me-first identities.

And He was also telling them a parable:

“No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old garment; otherwise he will both tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old.

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out, and the skins will be ruined.

“But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.

“And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good enough.’” [Luke 5:36-39]

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When the Lord Jesus prepares to bring real revival He must first create a real community.

Since He only works with and through people, such people must be real disciples. They must be born again. They must be new. They must be filled with His Spirit. Without willing, obedient, and fully submitted participants—new wineskins—He cannot work, create, or pour out new wine. We know this from His Word.

Creating the new necessitates leaving the old.

And He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.” But He said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.” [Luke 9:59-60]

Though it is obvious that the Lord Jesus is all-powerful and can do whatever He wants whenever He wants, it is also the case that He has given human beings a free will. People must choose. People must choose Him. Otherwise He cannot bring forth new life.

Therefore, free will restricts God.

Strangely enough, though, what most people don’t know is that free will also restricts free will.

Let me explain.

SPIRITUAL DYNAMICS OF THE OIL FIELD

I have worked many years in the oil fields of Texas. When I was a rookie learning operations and equipment I became aware that much of the stuff we were using was old and outdated. The old stuff was still in use for two reasons: It still functioned and to replace it would cost money.

The oil field is different like that. Because of the nature of ongoing boom and bust cycles, those who make their living in the industry have long since developed a traditional corresponding attitude. Those smaller companies who are invested in old equipment that still functions continue to use it even though it is outdated and advanced technology has created upgrades. It is the effort to work on the cheap and maximize profits while the getting is good.

During a boom when a lot of money is available, one would think the equipment would be upgraded. But I noticed that money was at such a premium even when it flowed that few wanted to use it to make upgrades as long as the old equipment still worked. People feared the inevitable bust and were afraid to spend, not sure if they would ever get their investment back. In other words—in a classic case of the counterintuitive—in times of plenty wallets often got even tighter.

Why spend money on new stuff when the old stuff still worked? Why upgrade the method when the existing method has worked for decades? Why treat people well when you could save money by treating them like cattle? Instead of thinking about spending for the future, a much greater price is paid in great inconvenience, more effort, more repairs, and more headaches.

Sound familiar?

Of course, the larger companies had capital to spend. Some newer companies began with the latest technologies. Their initial investments were in the best equipment and rigs of the time if they could afford it and had relatively long-term contracts. But for smaller operators, it was always a matter of using the past in the present.

I remember one day in my first year, when working on an old rig that had been cobbled together in the yard from parts going back decades, I asked a worker with much more experience what had occurred to me early on: “Why are we still doing things this way?” I’ll never forget his answer:

“Because that’s the way they did it in the fifties.”

It was then that I noticed a completely different phenomenon. Not only did the people who were invested in old, outdated equipment insist on using it until it was scrap beyond any possible repair, they also insisted on doing things “the old way.” There was great reluctance to adapt to anything new.

From this I learned three things:

(1) The old-timers who spent a lifetime working their way up from the bottom in much toil and misery and had gained a better position of employment with greater authority and salary only knew what they knew. They knew a lot, of course. They had a ton of experience. They knew how to run a rig. But they knew little that was new.

They had a hard time learning and adapting to new technologies. Their entire beings, brains, and brawn was an incredible collection of everything done in the oil field from many decades past to their present.

Though they had worked extremely hard and learned it all, they had become hardwired to history. It was all they knew.

(2) The second thing I learned from this strange dynamic is that it was like pulling dinosaur teeth to get anyone on a rig site to clue me in on a few things so I could do my job better and easier. There were so many times early on that I had to go through my work in the dark, just barely aware of my surroundings and how everything worked. I was trained enough to do the job just barely—that’s the way training was done. A man learned the basics quickly and then broke out into the field. So I had to learn a lot on my own on rig sites.

My employers were happy. They liked me. I was a great worker. I did my job. But they also would only invest so much. They invested in the minimum toward their employees. If you couldn’t hack it you were gone. I hacked it. I was forced by the culture to learn my job the way everyone else had always had to learn. Unless you knew somebody or were born into the oil field with a supportive family or friends, you were on your own. No one who knew anything was talking.

Also, nobody wanted anyone else to know how little they did know. People acted like they knew more than they did. So, on top of not knowing and wanting to know, one could not reveal that they didn’t know or they would lose rig site credibility. Cred is very important in the oil field. But one had to earn it. Low level rig workers would clue me in to some stuff here and there, as long as things were worded right and all the protocol was respected. They had had the same problem and could relate. But the higher ups were generally clammed up.

You know why? It wasn’t just to make the new guys squirm and feel like idiots, and for the joy that such actions brought them. It wasn’t just because men had to earn respect by working their butts off and figuring stuff out on their own. No one ever helped most of them when they were coming up and they were bound and determined to do likewise.

(3) It was mainly because they didn’t want anyone taking their job. They learned as rookies that knowledge in the oil field was power, and the more one knew the better off they were regarding the constant competition from new workers. Whatever they learned they put into practice but they never shared the information.

If you wanted to learn you would have to learn the hard way as they did. You would have to man your post the best you could though feeling like an idiot much of the time but never letting anybody know it. It’s how you climbed the ladder. You would have to be treated with supreme disrespect and indifference by condescending closed-lipped and close-minded rascals. You would have to be an idiot until you figured it out on your own.

Once you did figure it out you gained respect. I reached a point where it suddenly all came together. All the puzzle pieces fit. I saw the big picture. I got the big idea. I went from working in the dark to walking fully into the light. I learned it all the hard way, and it was very hard. Once a man goes through that process, he can afford a little swagger. I arrived at a place where I demanded respect without saying a word and I got it.

Whoever does not understand this is still in the dark.

Regarding Unreal Christianity, it explains everything. It explains why Unreal Christianity is still in the Dark Ages. It explains why it rejects the New Wine of the Spirit and why it refuses the Lord’s real community.

Rather than leave dead works and dead religion, the grateful dead thereof have invested everything they have in Old Wine, Old Wineskins, burying dead fathers, and spiritual darkness.

“If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” [Matthew 6:23][1]

For those who believe in the false concept that only those with the Lord’s blessing and approval always have abundance, where does that put the apostle Paul? Where does that put Peter and John in the following?

But Peter said, “I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—walk!” [Acts 3:6]

Would that the majority of Christian ministers had this spiritual power and ability, but they don’t. And they never will because they always put this world above the Lord’s spiritual kingdom. They always put money ahead of spiritual power. Their priority is always funding and having control, instead of more of the Lord Jesus, His love, His spiritual power, and His control.

In reality, putting the Lord Jesus, His kingdom, His righteousness, and one’s obedience to Him first actually does result in abundance, although the term is relative. By having the right priorities, one can have both the spiritual power of God and also be blessed by God materially and financially (to whatever degree He decides is appropriate).

Nevertheless, because the compromised ministers with wrong priorities make up the vast bulk of “ministry,” they also garner the vast bulk of the money.

This also means, of course, that honest ministers with the power and real love of God are in the decided minority. That is not necessarily bad on the surface, but it is when the majority—Unreal Christianity—treats them with contempt, cuts exorbitantly into the general Christian funding pool, and discriminates against them as illegitimate ministers.

But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. [James 2:9]

Why one cannot see the arrogant me-first outlook on the part of the Christian elite and those with religiously correct social standing most often means such a one is a part of that group—One can’t see the forest for the trees if one is one of the trees.

If one’s top priority is to fit in socially both in church and the community and be financially successful then it is impossible to do the will of God and hence, be blessed by God:

“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Him.

And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.” [Luke 16:13-15]

There was a time when the apostle Paul openly REBUKED the apostle Peter. Imagine that. Here we have two of the Lord’s very best men who were both used in spiritually tremendous ways. Both were filled with the Spirit of God. Both had been used for great miracles. Yet Paul thought Peter was wrong enough to be rebuked.

What would Paul think of all the current minister frauds of the present? If Paul would rebuke Peter, he would obviously rebuke, and much more severely, all of the money-grubbing elitist frauds who have made money, power, prestige, success, and a perfect outer image their priority. If such people would rebuke their own it would be a great sign, but such never happens.

It is the same with sycophant church boards and congregations who never speak out about the error from within. That means the only rebuke possible must come from without.

It also means that the Lord Jesus never leaves Himself without disciples with a strong and powerful anointing, like the apostle Paul, in any generation.

It means that, for all real Christians, part of their discipleship allows for possible rebuke by God, not for harm, but to insure that His community is strong, healthy, in possession of the full truth, and able to perform spiritually for the benefit of others. Whoever inoculates oneself from this process through the shield of gaining an improper exalted position, wealth, and influence has chosen the wrong path, and without repentance and redirection will lose one’s soul.

The author of the Book of Hebrews said it this way, at first quoting from Proverbs:

“MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.”

It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. [Hebrews 12:5-8]

In this we see who the real illegitimate children are and exactly why America is in decline: For the most part, spiritual imposters are in control. They have no salt, no light, and no power with God to successfully and effectively fight a spiritual war with evil. As a result, evil has gained the upper hand.

The Lord Jesus knew exactly what the reason for the decline of His own nation was, just as this writing is revealing what is causing America’s decline. The Lord also dealt with it directly in a powerful and confrontational way by exposing the false religionists for who they were and laying the blame exactly where it belonged.

If one seeks the party most responsible for the spiritual decline of America, forget the usual suspects. The reason for the decline is elsewhere. Look no further than the few in charge within Unreal Christianity, since they are the ones with the authority to make the most substantial choices that affect everyone else.

In closing, let’s look once again at the incredible statement of the Lord Jesus, for which this series is titled. All Christians must consider its implications. Its application reaches very far. It is at once a severe rebuke but it also puts things in stark spiritual perspective. All real Christians must learn this truth:

Now the Pharisees,

Who were lovers of money,

Were listening to all these things

And were scoffing at Him.

And He said to them,

“You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men,

“But God knows your hearts;

“For that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.”

I was sitting in church one day years ago. It was relatively early in a midweek service. We all sat waiting expectantly to hear a message from the Lord. The pastor had just begun his sermon and he told the congregation, “Please turn in your Bibles to the Book of…”

A twenty-something man toward the front, an unbright visitor with no understanding of church protocol, then immediately blurted out, “Wait! What page!?”

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One wonders why, in the face of many centuries of ecclesiastical control and strident oversight within Christianity, that someone has not yet addressed this issue. Why don’t we have just one Bible and one translation so everyone can follow along the same way many Christians do with everything else?

Wait. In fact, “Christians” did think of this. Many centuries ago. Then they quickly surmised it would be even better if they simply dispensed with the Word of God altogether. Then they could make up their own rules and their own book and no one would be the wiser.

They could have called it The Official Christian Rule Book.

All facetiousness aside, such a thing actually happened, exactly that way. For a thousand years (let me repeat), FOR A THOUSAND YEARS, the Bible was effectively outlawed within “official” Christianity.

THE ORIGINAL PROTESTANT REFORMATION

Christians forget that there was once a Protestant Reformation. They also forget that the Protestant Reformation arose for only one reason—it was a PROTEST against the Roman Catholic Church.

Why were so many people protesting against the Roman Catholic Church? And why were all the ringleaders Catholic or former Catholics?

Actually, the Protestant Reformation did not simply begin at a single point in time in the early 1500s, though that was certainly the beginning of the open and successful Reformation that the Catholic Church could no longer suppress or contain. It had been ongoing for, yes, A THOUSAND YEARS.

The problem for the various Protestants through the intervening years prior to the early 1500s was that they were usually politically unprotected single individuals, much like Old Testament prophets, or relatively small Christian societies. They were always outnumbered and outvoted, which included by possibly the millions otherwise sympathetic Catholics who were intimidated into silence without the courage to join them. Thus, these early Protestants were very easy to suppress and kill off by the so-called mother church.

Never mind that the Catholic Church violated always and repeatedly the clear teachings of the Lord Jesus in this regard in order to gain and maintain its strict religious control; it was obvious to the evil leaders thereof that no other method was feasible. The RCC spared no effort or funding to engage in ongoing religious cleansing of dissenters in order to establish and maintain a religious monolith.

Once a person decided to protest against obvious rule-breaking by the new illicit rule makers, such a person became their enemy. The religious controllers could attempt certain punishments to bring such righteous dissidents back into line, such as applying a non-tangible whip like a guilt trip or social excommunication, or they could go much further and engage in actual physical “discipline.”

If such efforts failed and the recalcitrant party refused to buckle under, the only things remaining were the dungeon or death. Both had been used forever by evil despots to silence their critics, and the new “Christian” clergy knew it must also use the same tactics to stay in power. Otherwise, their lies would be overwhelmed by the honest words of honest men who stood for the teachings of the Lord Jesus, and the clergyites would be defeated by truth.

Hence, the Original Protestant Reformation continued on throughout the many centuries of the Dark Ages—ages made dark for one reason—the elimination of the Word of God from the people. Therefore, the opponents of the Catholic Church—the protesting opponents who favored the free use of the Word of God for everybody—were actually the real friends of God. This exposed the real enemies of God—the Catholic clergy—the ones who purported officially and openly to be God’s friends and spokesmen.

Remember, there are two things that the enemies of the Lord hate more than Him, and that is HIS WORD and HIS NAME:

As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” [John 8:30-32]

Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name. [John 20:30-31]

The elimination of the freedom-releasing, life-giving, and spiritual power-producing Word of God and Name of God is a must if the Lord’s enemies are to be successful. That this happened through a false front “Christian” operation would otherwise open many eyes save for the extreme duplicity and treachery involved.

It is what we call religious guile, deceit, and hypocrisy of the highest order—standard operating procedure at the hands of the official Roman Catholic clergy of that time—and the very thing the Pharisees of the Lord’s time were guilty of as well.

THE ORIGINAL PHARISEES

The Lord Jesus saved His greatest, most forceful, and most damning rebukeathons for the evil Pharisaic leadership for one reason—they refused to allow the pure Word of God to be in the hands of the people—they refused to allow God to be in charge. They majored on instant condemnation for rule breakers. They were much more interested in the Gotcha! Protocol (and the quick punishment thereof) than any forgiveness, compassion, understanding, love, or mercy.

Sound familiar?

The Pharisees also insisted they must teach from a perverted “official” substitute rulebook written and sponsored by them and by no one else. The desire and goal of the Pharisaic leadership was complete and dominant religious control over every single person within what was left of the nation of Israel, as well as to infinity and beyond:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” [Matthew 23:15]

The Pharisees succeeded at this for a while, maybe two or three centuries. Their efforts ended up destroying their nation. But their success was minimal in comparison to successful Roman Catholicism, which not only caused the European Dark Ages but became the greatest Christian offshoot in history to the tune of one billion plus worldwide at present.

And it still operates the same way it always has, though obvious outward changes had to be made since the incredible spiritual successes of:

(1) The Protestant Reformation,

(2) The unprecedented establishment of complete, legal spiritual liberty and religious freedom with the against-all-odds creation of the United States of America. This freedom and liberty did not exist in Europe, even among Protestants, and certainly not among Catholics who spent a millennium and half fighting against it.

(3) The giant, ongoing, ever-increasing, worldwide Pentecostal movement of the last 120 years.

As had the Original Pharisees, the Roman Catholic Church still possesses its official rule book. It is a book loosely based on the Word of God. Yet, whoever knowingly teaches against the pure teachings of the Lord Jesus, makes additions or subtractions to or from them, and refuses to honor all of His teachings are, like the interloper Judas Iscariot, the Lord’s greatest enemies.

They are such because they both pretend to be something they are not and deceive people into believing it, and are flippantly arrogant in their effective rewriting of God’s original Word for the sake of their own illicit religious kingdoms and elite power structure.

Regarding the approach of the Lord Jesus toward such illicit rule book makers who revel in lording it over others, we know how He approached the Torah teachers (lawyers) and Pharisees of His time in the following passages:

“Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.” [Luke 11:52]

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.” [Matthew 23:13]

“And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition.” [Matthew 15:6] [1]

No spiritual entity on the face of the Earth wastes money and resources like fake churches. And most churches are fake churches. They are staffed by fake people doing fake things. Forrest Gump said his momma told him, “Stupid is as stupid does,” and there you have it.

The smartest, wisest man who ever lived is said by most pastors and their flocks to be King Solomon. And Solomon was a complete moron and a vile, immoral idiot. He had a moment of wisdom but later squandered it all and joined the devil. But all the church leaders and people still think he was the smartest and wisest.

Have they never heard of the Lord Jesus? The one they supposedly preach about and believe in?

No. Solomon. He’s the guy. And they love His big, giant, ornate, over-the-top temple, the very temple God told David to never build. But somehow, some way, it was okay for Solomon to build it.

No. It wasn’t. Solomon defied God by building it. Solomon was the first antichrist.

“David found favor in God’s sight, and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for Him.

“However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands; as the prophet says: ‘HEAVEN IS MY THRONE, AND EARTH IS THE FOOTSTOOL OF MY FEET; WHAT KIND OF HOUSE WILL YOU BUILD FOR ME?’ says the Lord, ‘OR WHAT PLACE IS THERE FOR MY REPOSE? WAS IT NOT MY HAND WHICH MADE ALL THESE THINGS?’

“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did…” [Acts 7:46-51] [1]

Despite Stephen’s clear pronouncements right before his death, right before the Solomon worshippers killed him, Solomon remains the perfect model for most clergyites. It gives them one more excuse to also build big, giant, ornate, over-the-top “temples.” It gives them the impetus to defy God as well.

THEY CREATED A MONSTER

One MUST notice that whenever these so-called Christians build as Solomon built, they also end up sinning as Solomon sinned. They open up the door to gross moral perversion and build that also. Must we be reminded of all the scandalous moral failures of so many unaccountable “pastors,” television preachers, flaming “music ministers,” Catholic priests and higher ups (including many Popes), and every other “Christian” who insists on Solomon and not the Lord Jesus as their example?

Once Solomon backslid and left the Lord, he was accountable to no one. He could do whatever he wanted to do and did. He had supreme power. The people disobeyed God and demanded a king and the king they ended up with made their lives miserable, and they were powerless to stop him. There were no checks on his life or behavior. This is ALWAYS a recipe for disaster. Many of these disasters in history have been successfully covered up. The ones that leak out give us both a clue and a warning, but the Solomons and their followers never pay attention.

Those who follow the example of Solomon, instead of circumcising their hearts and crucifying their flesh as the Lord Jesus taught, coddle their flesh and engage in great flesh indulgence of all and every kind. It also allows them to establish themselves as little antichrists, just like their hero Solomon.

If one would only do a mere modicum of research one would quickly note that the Lord Jesus and Solomon were polar opposites. One would also note that clergyites are also the polar opposite of the Lord, just as were the Pharisees. The more they become like their hero Solomon, the more they justify their excess, their unchecked authority, and their arrogance. They reach a point where no prophet can get to them and to hell they go.

We currently have popular “ministers” who many Christians and even other ministers know are adulterers and have engaged in gross immorality, but because they honor Solomon and bring in huge amounts of cash they get a pass. That’s why most “Christian” television was doomed from the start. Because it must suck up millions and millions and even billions of dollars to function and grow, the best money men are always most welcome.

That’s why such enterprises reach a point where no one exists who can stand up against the temptation that huge amounts of money bring, though some insist they can and have, but don’t. They’re in denial. The people running these enterprises always end up siphoning more and more off for themselves AND ALL THEIR FOLLOWERS LOOK THE OTHER WAY AND JUSTIFY IT ALL.

Forrest Gump is Albert Einstein compared to such people.

This Solomon mentality is most defined in our times by ultra-arrogant pompous swelled-heads who have no problem taking advantage of regular well-intentioned people who don’t have much and struggle financially every day to give, give, give! They see themselves as most worthy. The best at their craft actually DEMAND money and even go so far as to say God will get you if you don’t bless them.

AND PEOPLE DO IT. EVERY DAY. IN “CHURCHES” ALL OVER THE COUNTRY.

Their enterprises grow by leaps and bounds.

The Lord Jesus is out there in the parking lot somewhere because He either refuses to partake of their hogwash but cares about all the deceived people inside or because they would never let Him in anyway simply because there is no room for Him in the pulpit. Sound familiar? “If only we had a real leader…” they say. “If only God would come and help us…” they say. Sorry folks. He would certainly like to help but there is no room. His ministry is shoved aside by Mr. Fatboy preacher/priest/reverend who wants all the glory, authority, and control, (and money).

Quick question: On all those signs outside church buildings, whose name reigns? The very fact that it says “XYZ Church, Pastor John Doe” tells you everything you need to know.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if such church signs made otherwise honest claims such as, “The LORD JESUS is Shepherd here,” and the people actually backed it up?

But no. That’s just plain silly. WE CAN’T HAVE THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIANITY AS OUR ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY, CAN WE? Perish the thought! Now, everybody back to sleep.

IDOL WORSHIP AND GRAVEN IMAGES

At the final judgment, it won’t just be Lucy Ricardo whose gonna have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do. According to the Word of God we will all have to account for our actions. And while some sins are certainly worse than others, is it not obvious that the worst sin of all is idolatry? The first three commandments of the ten are anti-idolatry commandments but they never stopped ancient Israel from becoming the most idolatrous nation on earth. And all that idolatry culminated with King Solomon, the worst idolater of all time.

And that says a lot, when one considers all those ancient nations (and current ones) who love making statues and setting them up everywhere. Let’s see, there’s the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Catholics…

Oh, and Washington DC. Statues everywhere.

But mere statues are really not the biggest problem. They are simply relatively minor evidence of another problem. The biggest problem is all those living statues, idols every one, who breathe air and talk (endlessly), and demand control and rip you off.

THE WORST IDOLS ON THE PLANET TODAY ARE LIVING HUMAN BEINGS.

Exactly like the antichrist.

The Lord Jesus knew all about idolatry and how easy most people fall into temptation regarding it, and how much people want to worship other human beings. Most people are conditioned to believe they are mere nobodies and as a result are also conditioned to worship humans better and greater than themselves. The Lord knew all this and it is in part why He went out of His way every day to stay humble and keep a low profile. He did not want people perceiving Him as a mere human to worship, so He purposefully cut out all those things that the elite always use to prop themselves up. He never dressed up as a Pope or a clergyite or a TV preacher or a politician, but took on the persona of a low income working man, humble to the core, meek and mild (but carried a giant stick to whip the devil with and a powerful voice to put the Pharisees in their place).

If you are still confused about any of this, study the Lord’s life and manner. Study the life of John the Immerser. Study the life and manner of the early apostles and disciples.

Then compare them to Solomon, the man who most Christians and Jews have been taught to believe was the greatest, and that his reign brought on the greatest glory of Israel.

HELLO?

Have they never heard of the Lord Jesus? It still amazes me how so many millions of Christians and Christian leaders never give the Lord Jesus the respect, honor, and authority He deserves. Nobody disses the Lord like these people. It is the legacy of Unreal Christianity.

Solomon actually brought Israel to its knees through his exorbitant excess and idolatry. He taxed Israel to no end. He destroyed the nation. His legacy was the splitting of the nation in two. It never recovered. A thousand years later in 70AD the little that was left of it ceased to be forever, just as the Lord Jesus prophesied 40 years before.

IS ISRAEL’S PAST OUR FUTURE?

Our current leaders are looking more like King Solomon every day. We are living in the early part of the Solomon era. It will culminate with the antichrist. Our leaders will look and act more and more like Solomon as the few years we have left go by. These people are already guilty of gross excess and arrogance completely off the scale. Like Solomon, they perceive themselves to be bullet proof and even beyond God’s reach. If you think it’s bad now, and it is (it’s very bad), wait until you see what comes next.

Here’s a clue: The Roman emperors demanded everyone worship them as God…

“THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.” [Luke 4:18-19]

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Today is the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, also known as “The Great Charter of the Liberties.” An English document intended for rudimentary freedoms toward a restoration of basic liberties, it was immediately annulled by Pope Innocent III then reissued a year later. The Magna Carta began a centuries-long process toward political and spiritual freedom that eventually led toward the establishment of the freedoms gained in the American Revolutionary War.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Any American who reads the above passage from the Declaration of Independence and still doesn’t get it is an American in name only, just like so many clueless “Christians” who are Christian in name only.

This is a definitive statement that agrees perfectly with scripture and acknowledges the powerful fact that the Creator of us all has granted freedom to us all, that He has created us all equally, and that it is up to each individual to seek strongly with no reservation one’s own individual God-granted life, liberty, and happiness. Before one can set others free, one must himself be free.

We have been blessed in this nation with the legal support to become and be real Christians freely, with constitutional backing, and unlike the vast majority of tyrannical nations in this world throughout time, it makes it relatively simple to obey the commandments of God and spread the Gospel message.

And yet, we have a seeming majority of so-called Christians who deny it all. In their ridiculous opinion, Christians have no rights to seek anything whatsoever and must be forever banished to being powerless little non-people who are then supposed to somehow carry out the great obligations the Creator has placed upon them.

Where does this goofy, unbiblical, and anti-human idea come from?

Oh yeah—clergyites. You know, the guys with all the power, prestige, honor, answers, and control. Modern day clergyites are the direct spiritual descendants of the first century Pharisees, those who wanted to control every single aspect of every person’s life. These are the people who promise spiritual freedom but force everyone to sit down in pews all lined up in neat rows and never, ever utter a single word, and believe and practice only that which is dictated to them.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

The institutional clergy middlemen serve primarily not as ministers of light, but as blockages of the spiritual ministry of the Lord Jesus. Their insistence upon strong central authority has resulted in a free and strong people becoming unfree, spiritually wimpy, and incredibly quiet.

As a result, after so many centuries, these people have created a massive underclass of submissive, spiritually ignorant, Biblically illiterate nobodies who have become so conditioned to their illicit rule and heavy-handed regulations that they rarely, if ever, utter a single peep against what has been perpetrated upon them for fear of incurring their wrath, but mostly, and much more importantly, for fear of incurring God’s wrath.

And yet, God is the very one who wants us all to be free! Why then, are “God’s” ministers holding everyone in check? Why are they all demanding that we serve them? Why do they all insist that they must be honored to the nth degree while all the pew-sitters get squat?

Could it be because such a system does not serve God as much as it serves them?

“They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men.” [Matthew 23:4-7]

I am not arguing against proper authority, and the Lord Jesus has certainly authorized proper authority within His community. But I do argue very strongly AGAINST unrestricted clergyite excess and FOR the individual authority of every believer, BECAUSE GOD HAS GRANTED HIS AUTHORITY TO US ALL, not simply a miniscule subset of self-pronounced thoroughbreds.

How in the world are a mass of ultra-conditioned and manipulated no-namers in the devil’s eyes afraid to speak up against a celergyite ever going to effectively speak up against and fight the devil? The entire process is backwards. The Lord Jesus needs great, powerful people filled with His powerful Holy Spirit to take the battle to the enemy exactly the way the Lord and His people did in the early years. It is the only possible way to defeat the invisible forces of evil.

THE DEFEAT OF BRUTAL ROME

In case one has forgotten, the Roman Empire was ruled by brutal dictators and sub-tyrants on every level who had no feeling whatsoever for anyone who refused Roman rule, especially real Christians. There were ongoing Christian persecution campaigns from the very beginning that lasted at intervals over centuries, and it was all because the early believers insisted on serving the Lord Jesus as God and no other.

And guess what? The Christians won! The community of the Lord grew like a powerful, well-cultivated garden and spread over the entire empire regardless of any and every method the devil and Roman leadership used to stop it. The Lord Jesus made real disciples by the millions!

For a current equivalent, do some research on what’s been happening in China over the last 30-40 years. Millions and millions are filled with the Spirit of the Lord and are taking over in the same way.

How did it happen then, that we in America somehow lost that early fervor and strength of our forebears to the point that we willingly submit to so-called “pastors” whose idea of a spiritual army involves surrendering to their authority on every level? And the vast majority of these guys are mere talking heads and powerless blowhards less manly than most of the men in the pews.

And we wonder why America is going down the drain. The greatest potential resource God has is being wasted while sitting perpetually on the bench and never getting in the game because every position on the field has been taken over by T-balling clergyites making a mockery of God’s work.

When individual Christians are taught to surrender their God-given authority and freedom to wimpy controllers of a false system that effectively gets NOTHING done in a real spiritual fight, it plays perfectly into the hands of the devil himself who would rather face a bunch of illiterate wimps any day of the week than one single real Christian, because he knows that one single real Christian will hurt him.

God wants and needs believers who can do damage to the devil’s kingdom.

As it stands, though, the vast majority of “Christians” in America have been trained by religious quacks to do the very opposite of what the Lord Jesus instructed. It is a form of enchantment. What kind of theological magic is this, in which people think they are serving God but deny the authority of the Lord and refuse His freedom within their assemblies?

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. [2Corinthians 3:17]

Most so-called believers put no fear on the devil whatsoever. Most are no threat. Most do not attack him. Most just sit around and go through the motions completely oblivious to the battle all around them, while sinners go unsaved, miracles go unperformed, the sick go unhealed, the needy go unassisted, and no one is ever filled to overflowing with His life-giving and power-producing Holy Spirit.

And if anyone is confused on the issue, what good does it do to assist people according to natural means only and deny them freedom from sin and the forces of evil? The Lord Jesus was always a proponent of establishing spiritual freedom first. It was and remains His primary objective.

Therefore, the Lord has no need of powerless pew-sitting converts. He needs DISCIPLES. He needs people who can do damage to the devil’s illicit kingdom and rescue souls from it.

In short, He needs all of us to be KNOWN IN HELL:

God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out.

But also some of the Jewish exorcists, who went from place to place, attempted to name over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, “I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.” Seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.

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And the evil spirit answered and said to them, “I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?”

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And the man, in whom was the evil spirit, leaped on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus; and fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified. Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing. [Acts 19:11-20] [1]

Nothing shuts people off from greater truth than religion. The religions most notorious for this diabolical practice are the various forms of Unreal Christianity.

The devil started the practice of preaching disbelief in God and His Word in the very beginning, when he put doubt in the heart of Eve by questioning the legitimacy of God’s true intentions. Indeed, satan’s question to Eve, “Has God Said?” (Genesis 3:1) has been the devil’s mantra ever since.

He flat out lied to a gullible Eve who had professed evil intentions in her heart. Though she knew exactly what God really said, what He taught, and what He commanded, her desire was to explore the limits of sin and visit the very place and the only place God commanded must never be visited. Her desire to explore evil was cleverly disguised as an attempt to become “spiritually aware,” to become authoritative and strong, and even to become like God Himself. She decided she must break out of what she perceived as limitations curtailing her freedom.

I AM WOMAN. HEAR ME ROAR.

Though Eve incorrectly perceived herself to be boxed in, a box certainly existed. It was actually Pandora’s Box. And when she opened it, thinking she was opening some great Christmas present that would usher her into a wonderful world of spiritual knowledge and freedom, she discovered that God had never limited her at all, but was trying to protect her. The commandment to never partake of the evil tree was actually God’s protective shield of her soul and life. She had incorrectly believed that God was obstructing her from a higher, better place.

People must be allowed to choose. It is why God never forces anyone’s will. And that is why this world has become an ever-growing, festering, gigantic trash dump and manure pile of sin.

It all resulted from the incorrect actions of Eve, who, though greatly deceived by the devil, made it all possible through her own rebellious and manipulative desire to be like God, on her terms, through pride and because of pride, with no perception whatsoever of the real DOOR.

REAL REPENTANCE

Religion is not that door. Unreal Christianity is not that door. The purveyors of false religions tell us to do anything and everything other than the only thing and the real thing that will allow us to meet the Lord, and they draw the line and bar the door at that one thing: Real Repentance.

Why is real repentance so important? It is when the Blood of Jesus is applied to the cleansing of one’s soul.

False Christian religions do not preach repentance. If they did, everyone who walked into a service on any given day would hear all about it, every service, in a clear and understanding manner. To hell with people getting saved, set free, and delivered from sin, they say. They refuse to be disciples of the Lord and do what it takes to be used in that way. All they really want is religious power, money, and converts. They want a religious social club. Most preachers/priests/reverends are far too concerned with the things that benefit themselves and their religious enterprises. They are anti-examples.

The example of John the Immerser, however, is a perfect example. The reason he preached far out in the wilderness is because God wanted him to have nothing to do with the established false religions of the Jews.

The Sadducees did not even believe in spiritual practices or the resurrection. They were sold out to this world and were in bed with money, power, and the Roman government, and it benefitted them greatly. They were evil. There are many present examples of large bodies with false mindsets within overall Unreal Christianity who believe and practice exactly as did the Sadducees.

And exactly like still more forms of present Unreal Christianity, the Pharisees thought they were perfect, and believed they were perfectly teaching the real Word of God. The Lord Jesus even implied that they were, except they never practiced it. They made up a plethora of their own unwritten rules and extra-Biblical beliefs, exactly as the many forms of false Christianity later did, and continue to do today. The Lord Jesus said the Pharisees were children of the devil. He would say the same thing about Unreal Christianity.

John had to be set apart from all that diabolical religious nonsense. He had one message—REPENT. He commanded all who came to hear him to repent, to stop sinning, to get right with God, and to break free from corrupt religious practices that did the opposite of what they preached. God chose him as a perfect vessel for the process, “the greatest man ever born of a woman” (Matthew 11:11, Luke 7:28).

John was a prophet. He was the last Old Testament prophet. He had the anointing of Elijah. He HAD to be out in the wilderness away from all the corruption of false religion or he would have never achieved his calling. And he did achieve it. He did exactly as the Lord commanded him and did an excellent job.

Where are the John the Immersers of today?

The Lord Jesus also preached the message of repentance, of course. Everywhere He went He commanded repentance as the door to THE DOOR. Eve rejected repentance and chose spiritual and personal pride, which amounted to religious pride. It was the exact thing the Pharisees did. The devil became Eve’s father that day, and Adam, like a complete idiot, not wanting to lose Eve, chose the devil as well.

The apostles all preached repentance. “REPENT” WAS THE VERY FIRST WORD PETER USED WHEN GIVING THE ANSWER ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST.

In the vast majority of “Christian” church services, one never hears the word repent. It’s just not a nice thing to say. People will get mad. It would create a hassle. Who needs that? Substitutes and counterfeits are put forth instead. Why do the purveyors of Unreal Christianity do this? Why do they deny to the people the one thing that will begin the process of eliminating their sin and bring them closer to God?

It is for the same reason the Pharisees did what they did. They wanted people to honor them, not God. What a strange twist—John told it exactly right but was out in the middle of nowhere looking and acting and speaking like the complete opposite of a clergyite and got great results. His ministry turned around the heart of an entire nation!

Where are the John the Immersers of today?

AN ALTERNATIVE AGENDA

The majority of “Christian” adherents have closed their minds to God’s reality. Exactly like Eve and the Pharisees, they have desired the opposite of that which God commands. They do it for personal pride and advancement, and standing within this world’s culture. They even ascribe to and mix in as leaven the worldly cultural practices and beliefs of a fallen world in order to gain the benefits of the culture. Their desire is for wealth and power in this world through the practice of their religion, and will listen to nothing that hinders that desire and pursuit.

The fruit of this garbage is all around us. For the most part, “Christianity” is indeed DEAD.

Real Christianity, however, is advancing powerfully.

By refusing to succumb to the devil’s lies and false diabolical doctrines, the disciples of real Christianity understand repentance for the door it is. Their minds are open to the things of God and they do not care about any personal inconvenience or rejection by others. As a result, they have entered THE DOOR and are filled with the Spirit of God, and they have the evidence to prove it, unlike the fakers who claim the same but are deficient of proof.

The Lord is against dead religion that cuts people off from THE TRUTH, especially that of the “Christian” variety. It is up to each of us as individuals to choose correctly and break free from Unreal Christianity, all false doctrines, and fake preachers/priests/reverends, strangers all, who refuse the ministry of repentance from sin, notably religious sin—spiritual pride, the first sin—and obey and follow the Lord Jesus unto LIFE in Him:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

“When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them.

So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” [John 10:1-10][1]

As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?”

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

PHARISEES ARE IDIOTS

“I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.”

They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.”

Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.”

MURDEROUS, LYING, RELIGIOUS CHILDREN OF THE DEVIL

“You are doing the deeds of your father.”

They said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God.”

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word.

“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”

THRUST AND PARRY

The Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”

Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me. But I do not seek My glory; there is One who seeks and judges. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death.”

The Jews said to Him, “Now we know that You have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets also; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste of death.’ Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too; whom do You make Yourself out to be?”

JUST WHO ARE YOU EXACTLY?

Jesus answered, “If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’; and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”

So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I AM.”

Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple. [John 8:30-59] [1]

In order for the Lord Jesus to make a reset, a reset must first be made in the life of an individual who desires a reset by that individual and by no one else.

The latter reset, the one by the individual, is a choice. That’s all it is. It is an appeal to the Lord for help. The individual has no power to actually make any changes in the spiritual world to overcome the effects of the material world since he or she is limited to making choices that create change only in the material world.

Until repentance, one is in jail and often does not know it. And with no desire for real repentance one is free to exist without God.

The material world is limited. It is finite. There is only so much a person can do. And when a person is beset with the result of past sins and slavery to sin one has the added bonus of an allegorical albatross around one’s neck and a ball and chain on one’s foot.

Not good.

Some people notice this though maybe only in a foggy sense. They know something is not right. Something doesn’t add up. They exist in the midst of an illusion and false construct and are made to do things that do not satisfy their hearts.

So they search. These are the smart ones. The ones who are not smart decide to simply live for this world.

The smart ones who search must want THE TRUTH whatever the truth happens to be. They are looking for the keys. One must desire the means of escape even if the means is uncomfortable, socially unacceptable, a destroyer of one’s pride, and sure to cause trouble.

So, whoever refuses the above probabilities need go no further…

Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. [James 3:4]

This is a very powerful statement. Let’s read it again:

Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. [James 3:4]

Did you know this principle applies regardless of group size or official capacity? It applies to an individual just as it applies to governments and ruling institutions.

Quick questions:

Was the Roman Empire an enemy of God?

Can a “church” be a friend of the world?

For further insight and clarification, let’s look at the fourth chapter of James in context:

What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us?”

But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.” Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.

Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin. [John 4:1-17]

The last verse speaks of a violation of conscience. Everybody has a conscience. No one has an excuse. God judges the heart.

But have you noticed a person has a much greater chance of surrendering to the Lord Jesus if he or she has not already surrendered to a group?

Peer pressure is a killer. A government makes a bad law and everyone obeys it because they are afraid to stand up against it and invite the government’s wrath. Religions have codes that all within them must obey or they will be deemed a slacker and many obey codes and rules they do not agree with simply because they do not want to be characterized as a slacker and lose their standing in the group. People who belong to whatever culture must obey the expectations and ways of that culture or the culture will turn on them.

So we can see very clearly that the Community of the Lord Jesus is obviously made up of people who did not fit elsewhere. It is made up of strong-minded and strong-willed people who love the truth and will stand up for it regardless of personal cost.

And the greatest personal cost is always rejection from the prior group, the members of which are compromised by a lack of love for the truth, a heart with little or no courage, a desire to make it in this world at the expense of the next, a love of money, uncontrolled lust for things material, a desire for social prestige, and weak capitulation to any strongman who demands to rule them.

America, for example, was once a nation of strong individuals. Individualism was the very thing that made this country great. Strong groups are made of strong individuals.

Does anyone wonder how the Lord Jesus was able to stand up against virtually everyone and every group who all saw Him as a malcontent and deviant? Or how the early disciples faced so much persecution willingly without surrender, even to the point of death?

These were strong people. Real Christians are the strongest people on the planet simply because they are the most persecuted. They are hated without a cause. They are seen as deviants. They are culturally unacceptable. They don’t fit anywhere but in the Kingdom of God. They will have no master of any kind whatsoever other than the Lord Jesus. They are sheep of His pasture and no one else’s.

Be encouraged. The Lord is THE ROCK and His children are rocks.

Rock on.

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” [Matthew 5:10-16] [1]

There are people in this world who have never done anything wrong other than be a human being prone to sin and yet have suffered terribly. Through no fault of their own or choice made on their own they exist in this world under very challenging circumstances. Some people have suffered horrendous wrongs and have never received even the slightest modicum of justice.

Mature people learn early on that this world is not just. One can delude oneself all day long if that is one’s choice and insist in little kid fashion that all is fair and all is being taken care of and everything will be okay and all will work itself out and I am a good person and on and on.

In reality, however, some people know that evil—great evil—tremendous evil—exists in this world and that they have become its victims to various degrees. Tell an aborted child who just made the trip to heaven that there is no evil or that everything works out in the end. Tell him or her that the choices made by people to tear his or her tiny perfect body apart and end his or her one and only chance at life that justice always prevails.

Tell victims of unjust wars—and 99% of all wars in human history are without doubt unjust and happened only to satisfy powerful people and gain them more wealth and power—that unjust wars do not exist and it’s just your tough luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tell victims of murder, rape, robbery, and the unjust confiscation of their lands, property, money, health, and desire to live after such wanton destruction by people with absolute power and absolutely no heart have destroyed everything they have that justice always prevails.

The fact of the matter is that justice in this world is not blind, is applied selectively, and most people are not selected. The rich and powerful, however, are always selected.

Then remember the very clear teachings of the Lord Jesus:

“In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” [John 16:33]

“Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.” [Matthew 24:9]

“For those days will be a time of tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will.” [Mark 13:19][1]

The Lord spoke of a tribulation birthing process in which birth pangs will begin and increase exponentially. In other words, the evil present in this world will grow even greater, and even to the point in which it appears nothing, including His own people, will survive.

But lest one believe that tribulation has not always been here, consider what happened to the Lord Jesus—a perfect Man who never did anything wrong. Or consider what happened to His selected apostles and so many of His disciples. They did exactly what He told them to do and suffered as a result. It tells one that evil certainly exists and if one dares to challenge it one will pay. But if one never challenges evil then evil wins without a fight. It has been the victory of evil to merely intimidate and threaten without ever having to carry out such threats in most cases since most people have no courage.

But the Lord told us to be courageous, to receive His courage, and to be encouraged. Despite all the evil present way back then the Lord Jesus won anyway. The early believers won anyway. And we in the present can and will win anyway.

There is nothing the Lord Jesus cannot do but we must always remember that this world in not heaven and it is unjust. The Kingdom of Heaven resides in this world and it is certainly just. It is just because it is run by a just King. It should therefore be obvious that in places where justice does not prevail, the Lord Jesus is not King.

To the extent that the Lord can, since He is limited by our faith and obedience, He can certainly fix things. Here’s how:

(1) Repent of all sin, evil deeds, disobedience, and hate.

(2) Forgive everybody for anything they have ever done no matter how evil.

(3) Love everybody, even your enemies.

(4) Surrender your entire life and everything you possess to the only just King, and pledge yourself to full obedience to Him. His justice will then prevail in your life. Part of this process (though many will reject it), involves a proper water immersion response. And if someone thinks this is not necessary or superfluous I must remind one that the Lord created it, it is all over the Book of Acts, and both the Lord and the early believers thought it was very important. If one can somehow look beyond the surface one will see why.

(5) Allow the Lord Jesus to fill you with His powerful and loving Holy Spirit so you can have power and strength and might to both fight the good fight of faith to the greatest extent using a power not your own but also to be empowered to minister in powerful ways for the benefit of others who have been victims of evil and to be enabled to overcome all things.

The mark of a real Christian is being a selfless agent of God being used to overcome the evil and injustice of this world using any and all means possible and to properly arm oneself with all that may be required in order to set people free.

The Lord Jesus will return again soon. He will set everything aright.

He brings everything to pass precisely at its time; He also puts eternity in their mind, but without man ever guessing, from first to last, all the things that God brings to pass. [Ecclesiastes 3:11 JPST]

We sometimes find ourselves in the middle of an impossible challenge. Yet, many of us also know that, with God, all things are possible.

Here is the test of our faith:

The Lord God is righteous. He created everything. Mankind has rebelled against God and sinned. Mankind has brought gross corruption to this planet. The corruption continues to grow exponentially. God has never left the planet, but has been outvoted. It does not mean that He does not remain all-powerful or that He cannot act. It merely means that one must choose. One must develop eyes to see. One must know that God cares and has solutions.

But one must also know that because of the extreme interconnectivity of everything on the planet, anything done affects other things unseen, and as is often the case, the “solutions” of sinful rebellious humanity only make things worse.

The people ruling this planet making the biggest decisions affecting the most people are not righteous whatsoever, and are indeed the opposite of righteous. They are in league with the devil. They have agreed with a diabolical covenant that has as its foundation two basic tenets:

(1) The devil is the god of this world and everyone had better recognize it and obey him, and

(2) Those who surrender to him and honor him the most receive the greater benefits.

Hence, if a person is sold on this world instead of the Kingdom of God, if one loves mammon, if one loves imbibing the lusts of sinful flesh, and if one cares little or nothing for a God-given conscience that warns one of illicit behavior and the certain eventual results thereof, then one will end up falling directly into the devil’s trap.

However, because of the nature of the devil’s sly and deceptive game, a person on the wrong path never knows the full extent of a trap being set or that he or she is heading directly for it. It is only afterwards, after one has been trapped and is beset with the terrible effects of the imprisonment thereof, that one recognizes one has been deceived.

It should be obvious, therefore, that the best, most influential, and most successful human agents of the devil are those which appear as the very opposite and are in positions of well-accepted authority. Looking up to them, listening to them, obeying them, and even following them leads one to the very trap we have thus discussed.

You will know these people because they never acknowledge the absolute authority of the Lord Jesus. Never. Not even the so-called Christian religious authorities.

This should open a few eyes but such is a rare event. If the Lord had to actually appear in all His powerful radiance to the murderous, hateful, ultra-religious Phariaical Saul to get his attention, even to the point of knocking the little weasel off his horse and on his backside, what makes everyone else so special? The fact is that the Lord most often has to do the same thing to every one of us to gain our attention and eventual salvation.

Of course, there is no possibility of being deceived by the fake shining agents of the devil if one follows the Lord Jesus, who is God and has revealed Himself as God. Yet, strangely enough, He is not perceived as God, as the one supreme leader of the Universe, even by most Christians, because of the devil’s deceiving influence, and this is why most people never really submit to and exclusively follow the Lord.

It is the rejection of the Lord Jesus that causes the acceptance of false leaders and their false agendas. It is the acceptance of the Lord Jesus as the Master and sole authority of one’s life that causes complete rejection of anyone and everyone else who would stand in His place, especially those within the religious realm, and especially those within the “Christian” religious realm.

Most Christians fail and their lives never come to full fruition simply because they have accepted other leaders as the sole authorities in their lives rather than the Lord.

Those who never fully accept the Lord Jesus do so at their own peril. Until the trap is sprung they never see it coming.

As the apostle Paul recounted his first meeting with the Lord to King Agrippa, he included some incredible words of the Lord Jesus which explain perfectly our world situation and why so many are in absolute darkness, including himself prior to that eventful first meeting:

“While so engaged as I was journeying to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests, at midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining all around me and those who were journeying with me.

“And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

“And I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

‘But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you,

‘To open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’” [Acts 26:12-18] [1]

If a person has never experienced a great trap-freeing experience as the apostle Paul did—if one has never been born again spiritually—then one remains in the trap, otherwise known as the dominion of Satan.

And one remains deceived by some very influential people who have actually embraced the dominion of Satan because of the earthly benefits they have been granted. For most people, of course, there are few benefits or none at all.

And this explains everything.

In Part 2 we will look further into how the Lord Jesus can fix things, rearrange things, and set things aright in order to bring blessing to His children.

You’re in a cage. But you don’t know that. Your perspective is as limited as your spiritual geography. You have been taught over many years by fake smiling faces to get in your cage, stay in your cage, get dumb, stay dumb, don’t think, don’t express, stay within yourself, and be in prison…

It’s called a clergy spirit. Clergyites must control. Without control, clergyites have no reason to exist, cannot exist, have nothing to do, and have no reason for being.

But give them something to control and their brains suddenly start coming to life like an extravagant outdoor Christmas lighting display.

What must they control?

People. Always people.

And the results of their obsession and control is obvious to everyone with the real Light of God outside the cage and off the wheel.

“Hey Mommy, what are those people?

“Well, Johnny. Those are unreal Christians.”

“Why are they in that cage and going around on that wheel?”

“Well, Johnny, it’s because they think they’re going somewhere.”

“Where do they think they’re going?”

“Nobody knows, Johnny. Nobody knows. And neither do they…”

DECEPTION OR DISEASE?

The obsession of the clergy is not classified as a disease. The even greater obsession of obeying the clergy is not classified as a disease either. The reason is twofold:

(1) All things behavioral found in the institutional religious camp are not classified among psychological problems and diseases because such are perceived as faith issues with deep-set and often generational stimuli at the core of one’s being which must be respected since change is rendered next to impossible.

(2) The clergyites are an extension of political and statist controllers who know that control in general is a must in order for the ruling class to stay in power, and they perceive religious leaders as serving a very useful purpose and are therefore respected.

This is why clergyites in general are always respected by society in general without even knowing why this is the case or why no one ever questions these people on their control techniques and apparatus. And if you think asking questions of hamsters in a cage on a spinning wheel will get you anywhere you would be wrong because it’s something they cannot explain either.

Religious practices contrary to the teachings of the Lord Jesus are thus seen as “the right thing to do” without even knowing why one is doing it. One might think they have an answer early on regarding the hoped-for results or perceived results of their religious actions and protocol but such hoped-for results fade over time and are never actually actualized.

In time religious people then become stuck in their rote behavioral patterns and get closed-mouthed and closed-minded about it and will even become quite belligerent with anyone who may question their strange acquiescence to controlling controllers and the process of cramming their otherwise brilliant minds into a space the size of a tiny med bottle and living by the spirituality-killing meds within the tiny bottle.

Why does one not see that such behavior is the exact opposite of the behavior exhibited by those in the Upper Room on that first Day of Pentecost or by all of those real disciples throughout the early years of the Lord’s community?

Why can’t they perceive that their stifling and incoherent behavior is the result of a different teaching mechanism (false gospel) and is nothing whatsoever like that which the Lord Jesus taught about and brought to this world?

Why can’t they understand the simple concept that ultra-controlled behavior is the result of ultra-controlling controllers?

Why has the other side of the action-reaction principle become invisible?

Why can’t they see the other end of the harness to which they are attached?

Why can’t they perceive the wizard behind the curtain?

“I don’t know why I do what I do. I only know I do it. I must stay in the cage. I must stay on the wheel. I must go round and round…”

RELIGIOUS SLAVERY

Regarding actual hamsters, we know why they run within a spinning wheel in a cage: They’re in jail.

They have energy. They must move. They were created to be free with a large range and a purpose in life but all of that has been stolen from them. They exist purely at the whim of their owners who are somehow gratified by having such little pets over which they can watch, control, take care of, and be amused by. Now, if one could only harness the energy of the spinning wheel with the hamster in it and put it to some practical money-making use the circle would be complete.

Does this ever happen with humans? Does it ever happen with religious humans? Are there people in this world who actually have the desire to make money off of other people? Are any of these types found in religious circles? Do some religious leaders see their “flock” as mere living wallets from which they extract their living and build their enterprises?

When one removes all pretense, this desire to control and use people is boiled down to being nothing more than slavery. And those evil people who have believed in and practiced slavery throughout history had only one objective, and that was to use other human beings for their own purposes. Thus, it should otherwise be obvious that there is a thing called religious slavery.

Just like breaking horses and hitching them up to wagons or throwing a saddle on them, people have their breaking points when they finally give up, give in, and surrender to some form of slavery so they can get along in this world. They would rather be free but see real freedom as a practical impossibility and eventually give up all hope of ever having any real life and freedom and become jaded and redneck with regard to the possibility.

They may know somewhere way down deep in their heart that there is or was a way toward something better that their hearts used to believe in and strive for (spiritual freedom) but having failed repeatedly to find it and because they see all authority figures as exalted superiors who tell them no such way exists, they give up hope and become stoic lumps of humanity with closed minds and mere superficial outward expressions that mask their inner desires of something better.

This is what fake man-made religions do to people, and all of these fake man-made religions are controlled by some form of clergyites, which makes religious controllers the guilty party though most see them as benevolent, innocent, highly advanced, and loving gurus doing the “right” thing.

THIS IS RELIGIOUS DECEPTION OF THE HIGHEST ORDER.

It is the very thing and the most diabolical thing the Lord Jesus came to free us from and also that which He had the greatest fight against. It was the clergyites of His day that caused Him the greatest problems and who were always trying to kill Him. They both knew they could never exist together since the clergyites had stolen His place of authority for themselves and would never give it up. They were full of the devil—literally.

Those evil people eventually succeeded in His murder, but only because He laid down His life for all. All their prior attempts had failed miserably.

The Gospels are thus SHOUTING at us all to watch out for those guys who want to control one’s spirituality and stamp it with their own false garbage. Their objective is never to turn you on to the full revelation of the Lord Jesus and allow you to be completely free in Him but to make a brain dead religious slave of you and get your money in the process.

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.” [Matthew 23:13]

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. {pernicious ways: or, lascivious ways, as some copies read}

And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. [2 Peter 2:1-3 KJV]

LIGHT EXPOSING THE DARKNESS

Until the Lord Jesus came to live among us 2000 years ago the devil had remained very successfully hidden.

Then, THE DEVIL WAS SUDDENLY EXPOSED. The Lord Jesus tore down the curtain of illusion and revealed all the evil people submitted to the devil as well, and this is a major component of the real Gospel.

When the real Gospel is preached, the Light of God shines in such an all-pervasive way that the devil and his people cannot hide, have no place left to hide, and all the little unseen spaces where the cockroaches usually hide are suddenly lit up like airport runways blinding them by the Light.

Hence, the actual effect of the real Gospel chases the devil and his people to places they can no longer find to escape the Light. They are the ones who are then relegated to, and are supposed to be relegated to, a spinning wheel to nowhere in screaming fearful flight of a Light they cannot shun and an objective to hide that can never be achieved again.

“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.

“For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” [John 3:19-20]

THIS LIGHT IS WITHIN THOSE WHO ARE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT OF GOD AND WHO ARE CALLED, COMMISSIONED, AND EMPOWERED BY GOD TO SHINE THE LIGHT, TESTIFY OF THE LIGHT, PROMOTE SPIRITUAL FREEDOM, REVEAL ALL DARKNESS, AND EXPOSE THE DEVIL.

In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.

There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. [John 1:4-13] [1]

Many billions of dollars have been spent on Christian television over the last few decades with little overall effect on the spiritual condition of the country, though a few have greatly benefitted.

By this it should be obvious that money never drives real revivals and actual spiritual awakenings. Neither do popular personalities. Great Awakenings are always brought forth by the Lord Jesus through very humble people on a grassroots level, often with minimal financial support.

Appearing on major Christian television networks, these major personalities have major backing by tens of thousands of people who support each of them unequivocally. In essence, these personalities are idolized.

They are never questioned. Their backers have long since been persuaded by the demands of their religious culture to be silent and absolutely supportive. Their backers have been taught to believe that these personalities are standing right next to God Himself, are spiritually special, and are “God’s anointed.” Maybe some are.

Television is the perfect medium for these personalities. However, before they could ever appear on television, they must have first proved to be able to gather large crowds of solid supporters who never question anything they do or teach, though the majority of these personalities do not teach the fullness of the New Testament.

Here is a sign—a clear disclosure for anyone with eyes to see.

How is it that these personalities do not typify and better represent the example of the Lord Jesus as clearly illustrated in the Gospels? They do not seem to look like the Lord Jesus or any of the original apostles and disciples of the Lord. In fact, they sometimes present themselves as the complete opposite.

In further fact, some of them by their very example apparently live by the motto, in referring to the Lord Jesus, “He must decrease while I must increase.”

Uh Oh.

WHO’S FOLLOWING WHO?

In order to be successful, they had to create not disciples of the Lord Jesus, but their own followers. Their followers are not necessarily followers of the Lord and are usually not His disciples. Why? Because it is obvious that the Lord Jesus is not their primary focus and that they do not answer to the Lord but to these personalities they have chosen to be their leaders.

Once these personalities have gained a substantial following, they are allowed to be on television because television programs can only be successful if people watch. Having a built-in following already insures that a sizable amount of market share can be gained and can be used to build upon.

Some prove to be not quite ready for primetime. Some fail their opportunity. It could be because they are too honest and too real.

Others, however, fit the television medium perfectly. As a result, they are followed by even greater numbers of people, huge market share is gained, and donations rise exponentially. These people are thus gold to the network. They are what make the network successful.

Remember how the Lord Jesus described Himself? If one wants an accurate description of the Lord, it can be found in the following:

“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” [Matthew 11:29-30]

Also, remember how He was kicked out of the synagogues and was fought by organized religion? And how the religious elites and controllers of His day hated Him? And how they finally had enough when He cleaned out the money makers from the temple?

Then they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple.

And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL THE NATIONS?’ But you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.”

The chief priests and the scribes heard this, and began seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching. [Mark 11:15-18]

This account adds to the former description of the Lord Jesus. From it we can see that in addition to being gentle and humble in heart, He can also astonish people and make religious leaders afraid of Him.

BRAZEN IMAGES

The Lord would probably not have been so effective within the deemed requirements of the present Christian television medium. Here’s why:

People do not want television to reflect reality—even “reality shows” are at least partially scripted (fake). People want television to be entertaining, including Christian television. They want it to reflect fantasy. They want it to be a hyped-up, better-than-this-world, fictional adaptation of reality. And because these major Christian television personalities had already proven themselves to be entertaining showmen by the performances they put on in their churches every Sunday, it makes it possible for them to do the same on television.

It takes much training to look at a television camera and talk to it as if one were talking to another person. Some are not so good at this. There are television news readers, usually local, who have not quite mastered the concept. They talk to the camera well enough to have their job, but they do not appear so convincing. When a person watches them one can see that the news readers in question are certainly looking at the camera but appear to be talking to the camera instead of talking to the television viewers.

Major Christian television personalities do not do this. They have mastered the craft of appearing sincere while talking to a camera either with an audience or virtually alone in a studio. If they can get people to identify with them and watch them and listen to them intently as if they were actually talking directly to the person watching on television, then they have mastered the art of communicating through the medium of television.

This mastered art makes them primarily actors, not preachers of the gospel.

And everyone knows that the best actors are those who give the most convincing performance.

“…But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments.

“They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men…” [Matthew 23:5-7] [1]

During the Lord’s time, the chief religious actors were the Pharisees. How do we know this? Because the Lord Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites, and the meaning of the word hypocrite is, “an actor, a stage player, a dissembler, and a pretender.”

According to the major Christian television networks that exist because of these major Christian personalities, (1) Image is everything, and (2) Biblical truth is not as important as monetary success and maximum viewership.

REAL CHRISTIANS DON’T GO TO CHURCH TO HAVE CHURCH—THEY ARE THE CHURCH

It is obviously the same with many churches and denominations. It takes large amounts of money to make a religious enterprise work. It takes the purchase of real estate, much of it very high value. It takes the building of large very expensive structures. It takes the paying of very good salaries. Christians are conditioned to believe that Christianity simply cannot work or function without the preceding and without very large amounts of cash.

To that end, congregants and adherents of their respective denominations must be put upon to constantly support the enterprises with much time and much money, though most of the money goes to mere material outlays and most of the time is spent going back and forth several times a week attending the “services” in the buildings we call “churches.”

The Lord Jesus never bought real estate for ministry purposes.

He never built a church building.

He never commanded the building of church buildings.

Neither did any of His original disciples.

The first official church buildings were built three hundred years later.

Therefore, one must attempt to figure out how something so foreign to the Lord and the first Christians had become traditionally indispensible to later church folk. What spirit is being honored here? Who are these people trying to impress?

The Lord Jesus spent most of the donated ministry funds on everyone and everything but Himself. He purposely put Himself at the very end of the line in the use of ministry funds and allowed Himself only the very barest of the bare necessities.

Pharisees did the opposite. Major Christian Television Personalities often do the opposite. Many church leaders often do the opposite.

Rather than obeying the Lord Jesus, they have joined the “successful ministry profession,” and simultaneously the “religious acting profession,” since you can’t have one without the other. Both require large amounts of money, so the raising of money through any means possible is vitally necessary to the existence and maintenance of both professions, and has become a ministry of its own.

That’s why there are “religious telethon ministers” whose primary duty is to raise cash by manipulating as many people as possible using any means possible to get as many donations as possible.

On top of all this, the owners and purveyors and on-camera personalities of these enterprises use fear tactics against anyone who might question the necessity of their enterprises and the sincerity of its movers and shakers. Those who don’t go along with their shenanigans are attacked and labeled as something ungodly, which is another great trick of the devil.

The Pharisees used this exact trick on the Lord Jesus many times—“If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!” [Matthew 10:25]

Remember, the above dynamic involved an attack by institutional, traditional, mammon-serving religious leaders and their followers against the Son of God, who appeared as a total radical by comparison. The amount of conviction He brought to them by His perfect example was off the scale.

YOU CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON

Because correct teaching is deemed less important to the enterprise and is even frowned upon since it tends to greatly decrease market share, mass viewership, and especially potential donations, the major Christian television personalities only engage in what is popularly accepted by the majority since that is where the money comes from.

They also bow at the altar of all-inclusiveness by accepting non-believers and legitimizing “Christian” cults. They stay away from divisive issues, both social and political, but most often never address any strongly convicting New Covenant truths that are sure to cause problems with their real agenda.

Every good business owner knows the customer is always right and one must always honor the clients that make one’s business successful. That is why many ministers know one should never tick off the donor base. And whoever has the most money to donate and influence to grant, regardless of their spiritual condition, must be doted on and given a greater stake in the organization and interaction with those at the top of the pyramid.

Regarding such behind the scenes actions, the truth is usually not possible, whether it concerns real intentions and motivation, or why they shy away from preaching the full Gospel. They appear as seasoned politicians, expertly deflecting everything beyond the script with sincerity and smiling faces, knowing that as long as they have their financial backers everything will be fine. As a result, they are rendered largely untouchable regardless of scandal or the hint of one. Most may be as honest as possible within a not so spick-and-span industry, but many are at least guilty by association.

And instead of rebuking those among their ranks who are involved in questionable behavior and refuse to toe the New Covenant mark, they rally to the side of the guilty parties who sometimes remain unrepentant. They know the light may be shining on them one day and they’ll need the support of their allies.

UPDATE (3/13/15): The AP reports that a major Christian television personality, a man who claims he can garner $100,000 for a speaking engagement, needs your help. He needs $65 million dollars for a new luxury jet. Seriously, I do not make this stuff up…

I have noticed, since I removed my former cheery greeting at top left—“Thank You for Visiting. Your Reputation is Ruined,” with the current greeting, “We’re in the Early Stages of a National Great Awakening”—that it may be possible for ruined reputations to be further ruined.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Your thoughts are welcome.

Yet, I remember that day in early September of the year 2010, going on five years ago, when I received afresh that particular revelation. I had just begun writing a paper on the subject. I saw it very clearly. I asked friends what they thought, if they saw any evidence of such an event in the making. I asked friends in ministry. No one saw anything.

But I know what I heard once again, after first hearing it many years before. I wrote about it in Real Christianity, and I recalled so many who had been talking of such for many years and even decades. I was reminded of how the religious people of the Lord’s day missed His arrival completely, and that even His own disciples in the early going had no clue who He was. Even after His death many of them remained clueless for a while. They had to be rigorously shaken out of their slumber and unbelief.

You might want to pay attention to this because the Great Awakening will not come forth through the medium of unreal Christianity. Indeed such will fight it and will fight whoever is for the Lord Jesus and thus against them.

This current Great Awakening is being driven by TRUTH.

The Pharisees of the first century, that is, the organized official front of the most accepted faction of Jewish belief at the time, not only did not see and did not believe, they insisted repeatedly that the Lord was a charlatan and a false prophet. They hated the fact that so many of the people had succumbed to following the crazy man. They also had rejected John the Immerser. In fact, the organized official front of Jewish religious belief at that time rejected anyone and everyone but themselves, and they maintained their power through force and fear.

The Lord Jesus never did this. Never. He also never went out of His way to collect converts through spurious means or attempted to build anything material in which to house them (though He was formerly a carpenter). John the Immerser never did this either. Nor did the Lord’s disciples.

Why?

It should be obvious.

I remember a popular book of about fifty years ago entitled Black Like Me. It was about a white man, a writer, who wanted to find a way to go undercover to see how black people were actually treated by some white people. He decided to burr his hair and dye his skin very dark and pass himself off as a black man. It worked. He went out on the streets as a black man and what he discovered shocked him. Used to being treated well, he was suddenly treated very badly.

This is how it was with the Lord. His “people” praise Him from afar but when they actually meet Him and see what He is really all about He gets treated very badly. As I’ve said often on this site, “Christians” are notorious for this, as were the Pharisees as a group notorious for hating everything about Him. Their problem was that their concept of God did not come close to matching up with the real God, the One who actually showed up among them. They continued to honor the concept—the false image—rather than the real Person.

It is exactly the same with Truth. The Lord Jesus cut right to the heart of the matter concerning truth when He stated very simply but powerfully, “I AM the Truth.”

And He is, of course. And they murdered Him for it, of course.

His reality destroyed His enemies’ false conception of truth.

His teaching destroyed their false teachings and takeoffs on the Torah.

He came to make everything right and set them straight, but the elites rejected Him. They paid no attention to the real truth. They did not want the truth. They hated the truth. They repeatedly found fault with Him and His teachings. They had been overcome and brainwashed by false doctrine.

Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why they hated Him so—He was destroying not only their false concepts, interpretations, doctrines, dogmas, and organization, but in the end, began threatening their money.

And if there are two things that unreal Christians care about more than anything else, it is (1a) their money, and (1b) their religious reputations, both of which allow for their false organizations, impure teachings, and power to deceive.

Real Christians may do whatever they want, but according to unreal Christians, they must never reveal truth that destroys untruth accepted, worshipped, and honored as truth, and they must never do anything in any way, shape, or form that may appear as an attack on their religious wealth.

Hence, reputation and money are MUST HAVES for the unreal brethren if they are to exist in this world (and they are quite arrogant about it), whereas we have the early historical record that real Christians with NO reputation and NO money turned the world on its left ear and managed to convert the brutal Roman Empire.

And currently, there is such a surfeit of wealth and false doctrine one can hardly breathe without offending an unreal Christian. It again brings to mind what the Lord said about rank sinners getting in the door long before the few religious elites who might manage it. Most will not. Ever. They will go to hell offended with their reputations and money intact.

He said the following to the chief priests and elders of the people who questioned His authority while He was teaching in the temple:

“Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.” [Matthew 21:31-32]

This is why the Lord had to up the ante. This is why He took it upon Himself to visit this place directly after having sent so many messengers before Him. They were all killed and rejected. Yes, that’s right. That’s what happened to them. The Lord Jesus said exactly that.

But would the current inhabitants of the nation whose members claimed to be His followers for so many centuries who killed all the prior messengers also kill Him?

People who have no love for the truth have no love for the Lord Jesus, because He is the Truth. But until they actually meet Him and discover who He really is, they will think they love Him. They will think they are serving Him. They really believe they have it right. And because of that they must protect their reputation, their religion, and the money they derive from both, because without these they have nothing at all.

And this is obviously very true. It is why the Lord Jesus demands that we give up all in order to follow Him. We must give up false renditions of His teachings. We must surrender false concepts of His Person. And we must jettison our money and reputations if they keep us from Him.

He is not out to make us poor. Rather, He is out to rid us of anything and everything that keeps us dependent upon such things and from a close Fatherly relationship with Him, and to that end He was willing to give His life and did. He called this the greatest love. All who are not willing to do the same will automatically accept a substitute and counterfeit whether they want to or not.

His early disciples learned this and accepted it. They were at once absolutely and completely rejected by everyone else and it would have been a cold lonely life if the Lord had not also commanded them to love one another and be a family. He commanded them to be a loving community doing whatever they could for one another, but to mostly support one another and accept one another and love one another.

If there is one thing that defines an unreal Christian it is an institutional pronounced lack of this love.

The more one buys into the ultra-organized, clergy-dominated, religious reputation-insisted upon, wealth-oriented, surface-oriented, control-oriented, and dumbing-down of followers-oriented method of the Christian Pharisees, the more likely one will never know the real truth and consequently be in bondage to lies and deception without ever knowing it.

Now, with reference to my former greeting on this site, I knew the second I joined up with the Lord Jesus many years ago that my worldly reputation was shot forever, not that I necessarily even had one then, and I had many people, Christian and non-Christian (but mostly Christian) reminding me of it all the time. Should I restore my former greeting?

Regarding the Great Awakening, we must open our eyes and break out of any restrictive and blinding religious drudgery and routine we may be bogged down in. Some of those I talked to four and a half years ago have since come to agree with me, and claim they are indeed seeing signs. Maybe the signs are subtle. Maybe some are looking for the wrong signs. Maybe some are doing nothing to help bring it forth.

Remember, those who claimed to know God best before He came here two-thousand years ago were the ones who knew Him the least and not at all. They rejected Him outright. Let’s make sure we don’t fall for someone’s false agenda or false narrative, all of which have to do with the maintaining of power and wealth. But I caution all, if you decide to follow the real Jesus—God with us—the unreal among us will let you know post haste that you’re an idiot, even if all you ever do to incur their wrath is decide to never join their club or to leave their club.

But it was because of the false brethren secretly brought in, who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage. [Galatians 2:4]

Oh, and two more things—rather than being packed together like proverbial sardines, real Christians might get used to the social distance incurred upon them because heaven is vast and wide with huge open spaces where no premium is placed upon space restrictions—and real Christians might also get used to the Lord Jesus being in control, in which the first thing He does is grant the freedom to worship and serve Him the right way, the way He placed upon our hearts, which results in a lot of fun and expression, and the freedom to develop into mature disciples never otherwise granted.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. [2Corinthians 3:17] [1]

This is why there is a national Great Awakening in the works. It is His doing not ours. Yet, it is not something He is merely dictating. He is responding to the sincere heartfelt prayers of millions of His people over many decades who desire the truth and spiritual reality. He is pleased that so many have moved on from unfruitful methods, having grown tired from doing things the “right” way but seeing no results, and are determined to live and practice their faith as the originals did—those who turned the blasted world upside down.

He also responded two-thousand years ago, and at that time it was also to the remnant—and the remnant had it tough in the early going just like He did, and just like real Christians do now—but they prevailed and eventually spread the real Gospel all over the planet.

This is our current calling as well. We live in a time of anticipation and hope in which so many have given everything and suffered all things to light the way to this point in history.

Let us hope future generations see us as we see those real and faithful ones who helped bring forth the Great Awakenings of the past.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” [Matthew 16:24]

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Real Christians, like their Lord, always end up getting crucified. Let Him explain:

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” [Matthew 5:10-12]

According to these difficult teachings of the Lord, the following are the real credentials of real believers:

(1) Real Christians will be persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

(2) Real Christians, because they have committed to the Lord Jesus and follow Him, will be insulted.

(3) Real Christians, because they have committed to the Lord Jesus and follow Him, will be persecuted.

(4) Real Christians, because they have committed to the Lord Jesus and follow Him, will be falsely accused of all kinds of evil.

The Lord then taught that real believers are not to strike back in kind, but take the shots that come their way.

This means that when one is insulted, persecuted, and falsely accused for being a real Christian, one is to take the insults, persecution, and false accusations without returning insults, persecution, and false accusations in kind. One must not throw another log on the fire, thus escalating the war of words, but pour water on it instead.

This is certainly a form of crucifixion.

Keep in mind that the Lord was even being insulted, persecuted, and falsely accused while He hung on the cross:

THE MATTHEW ACCOUNT:

And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”

In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking Him and saying, “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him. HE TRUSTS IN GOD; LET GOD RESCUE Him now, IF HE DELIGHTS IN HIM; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

The robbers who had been crucified with Him were also insulting Him with the same words. [Matthew 27:39-44]

THE LUKE ACCOUNT:

And the people stood by, looking on. And even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One.”

The soldiers also mocked Him, coming up to Him, offering Him sour wine, and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”

Now there was also an inscription above Him, “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”

One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!”

But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” [Luke 23:35-41]

And there’s the point.

If the Lord took all of that abuse while hanging on a rough wooden cross with spike nails in His hands and feet and suffering excruciating pain most of us will never know and still managed to say, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34), then it is certainly possible to obey His teachings regarding insults and false accusations.

LIKE ONE FROM WHOM MEN HIDE THEIR FACE

We must know that He was insulted repeatedly all the live long day throughout His entire life and especially during His ministry. He had ample reason to strike back in kind but never did, not even from the cross.

Did He have the ability? Most certainly. Could He have climbed down off the cross? Without doubt. Could He have whipped any of those accusing pansies in a fist fight? I have no doubt He could have.

But He didn’t. And it takes a MUCH bigger man to take abuse without returning it. He took it all and never struck back because He had a MUCH higher goal than simply winning stupid arguments or defending one’s “honor” or reputation:

He wanted to ransom the souls of humanity.

“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” [Matthew 5:44-48]

The Lord Jesus not only taught this truth, He lived it. And He commanded all of His followers to do exactly the same.

ANTI-DISCIPLES

Yet, “Christians” are some of the most easily offended people on the planet. It does not take much for certain “Christians” to become extremely angry. There are those who insist they are Christians but are as judgmental and condemning as the day is long. Some will betray another in a heartbeat.

For many of these there is simply no impulse control whatsoever. The devil can play them like a drum whenever he feels like it. They are ready to fight in a split second. What is more, such people are proud of their desire and ability to insult and accuse in kind, not knowing or apparently caring that they are doing the devil’s work, especially if they engage in the inevitable maiming and murdering that results from being offended.

Others may exhibit great impulse control and give forth the appearance of godliness. That is, until they feel slighted in some way and then all hell breaks loose. As long as they are never challenged there is no reaction, though many such perceived “challenges” are never personal and have no bad intent.

They may think they are defending the truth, but they are actually egregiously violating the Lord’s commands, especially the love commandment.

But for the real Christian, when one is insulted and falsely accused, often by other Christians of course, one does not strike back in kind though one may certainly want to, and though one may certainly do so very effectively.

Instead, one must allow himself or herself to be crucified.

It is the picture of a crazed little runt poking a giant hibernating grizzly bear with a stick and continuing to do so since he is getting away with it. In time he grows ever more bold. But the day will come when the bear will wake up. At that point the little man better have an exit plan.

JUDGMENT LOOMS

All those who rejected and insulted and made fun of the Messiah when He came found out forty years later that crucifying Him actually meant they were destroying themselves, and the same thing eventually happens to all who persecute the Lord’s children. It’s what happens when the cure is rejected.

Better to judge ourselves than judge others:

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test? [2 Corinthians 13:5]

Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things.

But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation.

There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For there is no partiality with God.[Romans 2:1-11]

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“If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.”[John 12:47] [1]

It extended through the major cultures and empires of the world, culminating with the Romans in a purely pagan, non-Biblical sense.

The Romans built upon the prior foundations of Greece and Egypt primarily, and confiscated from those and other prior cultures the highly defined pagan image-making art of ancient times.

The nation of Israel had also long since succumbed to the practice of idolatry over a thousand years before, but it was the highly developed religious image-making and pretension of the first-century Pharisees who formed a false syncretic hybrid of Torah-ism and demon worship to the degree that the Lord Jesus called them “of their father the devil.”

This Phariseeism was later used in Christian forms, one principally which still exists today, and formed the basis of the Christian image-making of the present. And rather than only forming idols of wood, metal, or stone, these fakers have followed the devil’s lead by also creating fully evolved human idols worshipped and followed every Sunday morning and on televisions nationwide.

Indeed, television has become the perfect medium for such idolatry, though outside of television there has existed for many centuries an ultra-religious ceremonial and liturgical pageantry within particular denominations that has captured the minds of millions and deceived them away from the full expression and knowledge of the Lord.

The entire effort of these false Christian forms and formats, as related to the Lord’s original, results in nothing more than shallow religious “showtime” using well-compensated religious actors, exactly as did the Pharisees, whom the Lord referred to as hypocrites (devious religious stage players).

The Pharisees were fakes. They were not concerned with growing spiritually closer to God but about gaining earthly power and wealth. So are many “Christian” leaders and celebrities. If anyone actually believes that such “ministers” one sees up front and center are real, and that they are just like their stage (platform, pulpit) persona behind the scenes in regular life, such people are grossly deceived, and it illustrates how easy it is to manipulate and lead around by the nose those who refuse to fully surrender to the Lord Jesus.

“IT IS THE SPIRIT WHO GIVES LIFE; THE FLESH PROFITS NOTHING.” [John 6:63]

Of course, there is nothing whatsoever fake or disingenuous about the Lord. And His rejection and death was in part because He obeyed the Torah commandments against idolatry and that He rejected false image-making. In essence, He appeared to be much less than whom He really was to a people well-conditioned to submit to religious masqueraders. To the majority, the God of the Universe simply did not look the part unlike so many religious fakers who did.

…For even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness… [2Corinthians 11:14-15]

Christian religious image-making of the present has certainly gone mainstream but also mandatory if one is to receive market share, popularity, and reach the primary highly-coveted fundamental goals, which remain the same:

(1) An outlet for one’s vanity, narcissism, and pride,

(2) Greater advantage and influence, and

(3) Wealth.

Therefore, Christians in particular must always remember that—

One’s eyes can certainly be deceived (and often are)

One’s perceived correct Biblical beliefs can certainly be inaccurate (and often are) through the power of a false gospel, and

One can certainly become a dupe. It has happened to millions, and such millions are growing exponentially. Those without spiritual eyes to see who have no love for the truth cannot help but be fooled. [See 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12]

These are victims of higher powers masquerading as something real—false lights of shining fakery and carefully-crafted graven images of the human kind.

One thing such victims all have in common is they don’t know they are deceived, are often willingly deceived, and strangely, stubbornly insist on supporting the unreal rather than the real, even if it costs them their eternal souls. It is pure idolatry, and the antithesis of the purity and reality of the Lord Jesus.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.

He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep.” [John 10:7-13] [1]

The historical and American culture-changing Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 (see video at end of Part 1) proved that what once was, was no more. A great transformation had taken place. Life got “modern.” The organic became the cosmetic. The country shifted dramatically from the spiritual to the material. Depth gave way to shallowness. Image-making became a priority.

Keep in mind, however, that this was also the beginning of the Holy Spirit outpouring throughout denominational Christianity. Pentecost was pouring into places where it had previously been blocked. Thousands of denominational Christians were being filled with the Spirit like hundreds of thousands of Pentecostals before them. This outpouring also eventually reached the American Catholic Church. Many priests and nuns were becoming Pentecostal. It began the great Catholic Charismatic movement.

But, of course, almost all of this wonderful spiritual history was not being reported by the few major news outlets that had succumbed to the phony dog and pony political show before them. It became obvious to anyone with spiritual eyes and ears that the major media became nothing more than a corporate entity doing the bidding of elites deceiving the country. As the dominance of the television medium increased, so did the power to use it for the sinister purposes of swaying the country toward a hidden agenda for the personal gain of those in power.

Cultural conformity was forced and enforced, even more than in the 1950s. For a typical example, over half a century ago, IBM mandated a black pants, white shirt, black tie image for all workers as a statement of corporate uniformity. Professional dress became the model for emerging corporatism. Any and all forms of dissent were perceived as anti-American though the country was founded upon dissent and revolution.

But suddenly, unbelievably, the perfect created image was destroyed. Naïve, idyllic America became an all too real nightmare. An American president had been savagely murdered under mysterious circumstances. Militarism and the destructive Vietnam War were in full swing. The ridiculous attitude of “my country right or wrong” became a compulsory slogan as an end-all be-all instead of doing the right thing to correct gross wrongs. Race riots were breaking out.

Such coercion toward a regimented “follow-orders” populace created what was then known as the generation gap in that young people, still very much American at heart, rebelled against the fakery, the overbearing political correctness, religious redneckism, and the emerging military/political/corporate glom being forced upon the populace.

Amidst all this, most Americans had no idea what was causing all the change or that they were being played. They did not see the actors behind the curtain. All anyone knew was that it seemed like the country was exploding.

For they sow the wind and they reap the whirlwind. [Hosea 8:7][1]

KEEPING UP APPEARANCES

It had been almost another half century since the dawn of public relations imaging and methods, and American individualism took a hit. It was a time of “Keeping up with the Joneses,” a popular expression of the day, when the middle class expanded and most were concerned with doing whatever they must to appear as solid, successful citizens and within a higher social strata.

Bucking the system was opposed by the majority as something inherently wrong without noticing that “the system” had gone terribly wrong. “Keeping up appearances” was preferable to taking on the persona of the early American patriots to fix the country, and such image-consciousness was no longer only for the wealthy but for everyone who wanted to be well thought of.

One’s presented image took precedence over one’s spiritual stature.

Therefore, much of what happened in the counter-cultural 1960s was an immoral over-reaction against the heavy-handed authoritarianism of the day, in which those in charge were often terribly wrong though they insisted they must be honored, respected, and obeyed anyway. Most Americans did obey only to discover years later they were wrong to do that. Their outer redneckism of the time veiled a yellow, selfish heart. They bought into the lie.

Image-making was so pervasive it became unconscious.

Yet, centuries before the changes of the last one hundred years, there was a group of people who had mastered the craft of image-making and became extremely successful in its use. And it seems that whenever we reach points in history in which false imagery reaches its zenith, all hell breaks loose.

In Part 3 we will look at the greatest manipulators of all and the sinister methods they use so well.

It is fairly easy for the non-deceived to spot faux religious leaders.

Such are the ones with perfect outer images who have mastered the art of staying in character.

They also dress very well for the part.

“‘Cursed is the man who makes an idol or a molten image, an abomination to the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ And all the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’” [Deuteronomy 27:15] [1]

I remember hearing a message by a man principally involved in marriage ministry who also pastors a large congregation. This man was talking about how God created men to be wired visually regarding their attraction toward a mate.

He then began talking about how enhanced photography and facial makeup allow some women to look much better than they actually do. When such methods create an image, it is simply not real. He said married men often fall into temptation comparing such pretty faces to their wives, who feel they can’t compete.

Regarding even the best looking professional super models he said, “Don’t be concerned about not looking like that. They don’t look like that…”

Now, it is certainly okay to want to look our best, but some strive to vastly improve on the Creator’s handiwork and attempt to look not just their best but better than the rest, even if it means cosmetically transforming in the extreme their actual, God-given appearance. And the ultra use of cosmetics, plastic surgery, and photographic tricks to assist in that process is no longer necessarily an option for many, though it is a relatively recent innovation.

CONTEMPORARY IMAGE-MAKING

The first crude camera photograph was created circa 1826-27, going on two centuries ago, and the vast majority of ladies in developed nations never wore makeup until maybe 50-60 years ago. Now, of course, the percentage of women who wear makeup to some degree or another has advanced dramatically, and photography has advanced to ultra high definition video. By comparing the oldest photographs from the 1800s and portrait paintings centuries older, one can see the great advances made both in mechanical media and also culturally accepted (demanded) cosmetics.

Technology has presently improved to the extent that a person’s image can be dramatically changed, and it can generate quite a shock when such people are seen outside their usual doctored images. This often happens with celebrities who spend a lot of time behind a camera, but this is not always the case.

For instance, there is the true story from a few years ago of a longtime pastor who, during the middle of a big Sunday church service while preaching, suddenly ripped off the hairpiece from atop his head.

The entire congregation was blown away. He had been wearing hairpieces for so long most of the people there had never known he was bald. It probably took a while to get used to the “new guy.”

Because there are currently so many false images in the world, and because people become so used to seeing created images, the actual person underneath is often unrecognizable and by comparison obviously inferior.

This has caused two things: (1) Very high artificial self-esteem based on the use of excellent effects to enhance one’s natural appearance, and (2) Very low self-esteem for those who cannot compete for whatever reason.

It is most likely that such a wide divergence of image did not exist in the days when all women wore no makeup, save for a tiny percentage of royals and the wealthy. This provided for a level playing field though some had greater natural beauty than others.

Today, if people choose to transform their image using whatever means, the outer image thus created is obviously different than what their actual natural image would be otherwise.

If some of these people also dress very well, learn how to present themselves very well, say all the right words and phrases, and effect fake smiles and attitudes that appear real, outside observers will certainly be faked out, especially if they’ve never seen such people sans their carefully crafted image.

What’s going on here? Why do people want to engage in such image-making?

It usually boils down to three things: (1) Vanity, (2) Advantage, and (3) Money.

CREATING A PERSONAL BRAND

It is a matter of social acceptance. It is a matter of dispelling any doubts concerning one’s character and motives. It is a matter of putting forth the look of success and proper reputation.

It is also a matter of competition. The better one looks and the more one is accepted, the more one rises in one’s society (gains in popularity) and the better one feels (an ongoing endorphin rush), both of which results in greater pleasure and high self-esteem, though the danger of creating great pride exists based simply on a less than honest outer image. Also, more doors will open. More open doors mean receiving more opportunities, earning more money, and even attracting a better mate (or multiple mates).

Of course, Hollywood figured this out going on a century ago. The creation of “movie stars” was not possible without stage lighting, makeup, superior costumes, camera tricks, and etc. And once such stars were created, the movie-going public attended theaters all over the country in droves which made for an interesting phenomenon regarding people worshipping people.

As the medium grew more sophisticated and color film was invented, image-making went through the roof. Nice looking people became extremely good-looking people. The eventual fake image of these people became the standard image, since so few were seen in the real world under normal conditions. When they were seen for how they really looked, however, the contrast was obvious and often scandalous.

Many mainline Christian denominations preached against makeup and what they might term “unholy clothing” for decades in a vain attempt to keep Hollywood from invading the church. But after World War I, the advent of moving pictures, and the comparatively decadent “Roaring Twenties” when greater wealth and material goods became available, the cat was out of the bag.

It would take another quarter century, another World War (including the immoral influence of other cultures), and television before America became transformed forever into an amoral image-based society.

The Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates, the first televised debates, proved this transformation in 1960. The visual contrast between these two men was stark in that John Kennedy presented a much greater televised image than Richard Nixon, though many who only listened on radio thought Nixon had won.

It was primarily John Kennedy’s carefully crafted superior image that eventually won him the presidency.

God is LOVE, and love is what makes the whole thing work. His entire kingdom is based on love and on His people loving one another.

Love must be expressed. It must be shown. The Lord Jesus commanded us to love.

Yet, there remains a giant disconnect regarding this clear command and it stems from the false teachings of those who falsely represent the Lord.

John said it this way:

If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. [1John 4:20-21]

We know, though, that God showed up among us, and did His best to teach us all to love, and did love. But this world exposed itself for what it really is by what it did to Him. He was murdered, as was Abel, by His own.

By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous. [1John 3:10-12]

There are thus two different types of people in this world: Those who love and those who hate—those whose deeds are righteous and those whose deeds are evil. And much of the evil perpetrated upon the righteous is done in a backhanded manner by any number of duplicitous Cains and Judases, exactly as it happened to Abel and the Lord.

Thus, if one cannot handle multiple knives in the back traveling the Christian way, one will never make it to heaven.

Though the expression “backstabbing” originates much later in history, the proverbial illustration of betrayal by “loved ones” might presently be seen as certainly one of the wounds suffered by the Lord, as those suffered during His crucifixion. The Lord Jesus was not only betrayed by His people in general, but specifically by one of His own men—a disciple He selected—and it is not necessarily true that Judas was personally destined to betray Him.

Someone would, of course. Such was prophesied in holy writ long before. And Judas Iscariot became that man. And the Lord warned us that such vile two-faced betrayal would also happen to His disciples.

The apostle Paul was betrayed. And though it is not necessarily recorded, all of the original eleven were undoubtedly betrayed in some way by other “Christians.”

Indeed, “Christianity” in general has certainly betrayed the Lord Jesus. His pure and complete teachings are most often picked over and particular parts here and there are selected as appropriate while much of his curriculum is rejected as unpleasant and non-applicable.

Denominations make their own distinct choices and build up unique “statements of belief” to make sure everyone knows just what it is they choose and what they reject. In other words, instead of simply stating that “We believe the full teachings of the Lord Jesus, support them, and apply them to the best of our ability,” they actually only support what they deem supportable.

Excuses are made for all they reject, citing various explanations and flawed reasoning, and when such is done over a few centuries, their man-made doctrines become etched in stone. And when the inevitable revisions come, they always remove more of the Lord’s pure teachings and adopt more man-made teachings.

And incredibly, most Christians not only end up believing and supporting false doctrines, they effectively insist that it is not they who are wrong, but the Lord Jesus. Or the Bible. Or people who do not believe as they do.

This is the mark of closed-minded religious exclusivism. Such belief systems create hardened, hateful hearts regardless of outward expression. And such hearts routinely violate the Golden Rule.

How ironic is it then, that the worst violators of the Golden Rule on the planet are “Christians?” And how strange is it that the most likely individual to engage in backstabbing a Christian is another Christian?

Now, for all those who have never been betrayed, you might want to recheck your beliefs, because the Word of God says that two things will certainly follow real believers: The first is signs, wonders, and miraculous evidence of the real Gospel when properly presented and lived out, and the second is persecution, highlighted by the enemy’s favorite method employed well by Judas.

Concerning the evidential conduct of real Christians, the Lord said:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” [John 13:34-35]

The above was an addendum to the following:

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”

And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’

“On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” [Matthew 22:36-40]

And to make sure everyone fully understands the concept and that a Christian’s love for others must be universal, He taught:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” [Matthew 5:43-48] [1]

In all of this, we see that there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for disobeying the Golden Rule, and that it must be extended even to one’s enemies who engage in persecution, especially if the persecutor is a former trusted one who took advantage of a lack of defense by the one who loved and shot his or her friend in the back.

And to show how incredibly vile this practice is—this violation of the love commandment—and that it is most often found in the realm of religion, “Christians” who make personal attacks (anti-love) on fellow believers, acting as if they have somehow garnered the spiritual high ground and that those they attack and condemn are worthy of such, often have no remorse whatsoever for their actions and never repent.

Indeed, they believe they are fully justified to lash out at whoever does not believe according to their “different gospel.” In this, they are more evil than Judas Iscariot.

For those faithful readers who have read the articles on this blog for a while, you know I must write about what is wrong in order to attempt to illustrate what is right. What the Lord Jesus did during His ministry was right. What His hand-picked men did after Him was right.

The original apostles ushered in real Christianity at the very beginning and spread it throughout the then-known world in faithful adherence to the Founder’s vision.

Some may want to call original Christianity a movement, and it certainly is in a sense. Others may see it as simply one more religion begun by a Man who saw a great need for helping people with a better life.

In reality, however, God had an overall plan from the beginning of Creation and part of that plan involved bringing forth truth and reality. Why? Because the enemy of our souls brought in lies, deception, temptation, and sin. And the very heart of the Lord’s teachings is to set us free from the effects of those evil lies, deception, and sin and bless us with His Truth, Life, and spiritual freedom.

Therefore, it must be the goal of every real Christian to do exactly the same. In this regard, the Lord Jesus made the concept very clear when He stated:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” [John 14:12-18]

In this passage, the Lord mentions the Father, the Son, and the Spirit of Truth, or the Holy Spirit. He then identifies Himself as the Holy Spirit. He also repeats the very message of YHWH in the Old Testament, as when God stated the following at the giving of the Ten Commandments:

Then God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.” [Exodus 20:1-7]

A big part of the Lord’s teaching was properly identifying God and God’s real teachings. Why? Because the Pharisees, predominantly, had so muddied the waters with their own false teachings interspersed somewhat with God’s real teachings.

But the one prevailing evidential component the Lord Jesus used to identify Himself as God and confirm that His teachings were correct as opposed to the false religion of the Pharisees or any other was His operative use of miracles both to help others and confirm that His Word was God’s Word.

In other words, if the miracles, healings, release from demon possession, and other great spiritual works were not there, then neither was He or His real Word.

Now, contrast everything you just read with a typical Sunday morning at your church and tell me both are the same. For most of you, you simply cannot do it. And this reveals that the majority of Christianity in this world, regardless of perceived good hearts and good intentions, is either incorrect or greatly lacking.

And further, if you want to know the central reason for this, it is a matter of authority, in that someone or something else is in charge instead of the Lord Jesus. Again, He stated very clearly the following:

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. [John 14:15]

(If you don’t love Me you will not.)

“Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.” [John 14:11]

(Even if you cannot perceive that Jesus is God, believe Him because of the miracles.)

Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”

Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’”? [John 14:8-9]

This statement, of course, takes us right back to the Exodus passage. The Lord Jesus would never and did never teach anything against the Father (God/YHWH) or anything in addition to the Father.

“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. [Matthew 5:17]

What He did was teach the same curriculum but as a human being among human beings as not only an instructor but as our example.

This is why He said His real disciples would perform just as He did. Anyone who does not is either not a real disciple, a very young or immature disciple, or possibly unclear on the concept. But once “no miracles” Christianity was established and institutionalized it became conventional and real Christianity thus became unconventional, and thus ostracized and maligned, just as first-century Phariseeism maligned the Lord and His teachings.

In other words, if Major League Baseball (the highest league on the planet) was easy, anyone could play it. The fact, however, is that it is very, very difficult and only a fraction of exceptional ballplayers ever get there or play well for an extended time at that level.

Most of that which passes itself off as Christianity is mere T-Ball at best and thus has very little or no impact on this fallen world of sin, which is a terrible thing once one considers the extreme price the Founder paid and the price paid by all real believers throughout history who often gave their lives.

2015 will be a pivotal year. The Great Awakening in America will advance. But already, many who would have otherwise participated cut themselves off due to their disobedience, lack of faith, lack of love, and preference for a different gospel. This had to happen for the purpose of clearing the ranks just as was done in the story of Gideon’s army which was reduced by removing 99%.

Just as the Lord Jesus had tens of thousands of followers during His ministry but only managed to gather 120 for the Upper Room Experience at Pentecost, He does not necessarily need great numbers. He wants great numbers in the sense that He loves and wants everybody. But He can certainly make do with a small team of dedicated members willing to obey all of His commandments. His final team will be just that because He said only a comparative few would find the real Door and complete the real path.

To be a real disciple of the Lord, one must be worthy and willing to accept the challenge. Our Lord paid the greatest price for this very reason. He needs our help. A fallen world is crying out for reality, truth, and salvation.

“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.” [Matthew 10:37-38] [1]

As His disciples, let us all make a greater effort to exalt the Lord Jesus, put His real Truth on the map through our ministry to others and one another, and illustrate by our spiritual example a pure reflection of His example.

In Part 2 of this series I raised the prospect of spiritual deafness and blindness arising from an obstinate attitude toward new revelation. As I wrote in Real Christianity,

.

As strange as it may seem, what we have to show for two millennia of church history is an overwhelming preponderance of completely unique and separate Christian cultures. Stranger still, most of these are simultaneously and mysteriously united under the umbrella of a single proviso. Though not in fellowship with the other and though each claims to be under the Lord’s dominion, they are actually joined as one in their opposition to His complete rule. In reality, their actions give them the demeanor of the legendary roving bands of the ancient world, seeking pastures for their flocks, fighting those who threaten their turf, ever wondering and searching for greater power and influence, but all the while refusing to be fully obedient to the Lord. Stiff-necked, stubborn, arrogant, clutching their religious robes about them, they set their feet in the concrete of human frailty and fear, unable to trust the God of all creation whose truth could set them free.

As I’ve stated before on many occasions, if you want to get the Lord Jesus angry at you, be religiously stiff-necked. Act as if you know everything. Act as if the truth you possess is all the truth there is. Reject the truth the Lord is trying to reveal because it simply does not fit in with your current belief-system. Obey your religious and denominational leaders first, and consider the Lord further down the list. Act as if your church or denomination is already doctrinally and culturally exactly the way God wants it, or is certainly better than all others. Claim to have God’s truth though completely lacking God’s real love and power.

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. [2 Timothy 3:1-7]

Keep in mind that a big part of the Lord’s curriculum is correcting us when we are wrong. He does this by teaching us the truth, even it means showing us the error of our ways. The religiously stiff-necked will always reject such teaching, however. Why? Because it involves conviction. Unreal Christians hate conviction. They don’t want to be convicted. Conviction hurts. It puts one off-balance. It reveals that one is wrong. And it thus demands correction from the one who is wrong.

The Lord Jesus always attempts to do this at first with much grace and love, but that does not deaden the impact. In fact, it sometimes makes it worse. A heart that is circumcised, however, will be able to handle the pain. A tender heart can accept proper rebuke, though tears may well up in one’s eyes and fall, and though one may feel so vulnerable he or she feels there is no cure for such brokenness.

But this is part of washing one’s heart with the Blood of Jesus. It is the process of conforming such a heart to His heart. He created a loving, tender-hearted family. There is only one way to do this. The early believers had this love and were like the Lord. Their love and joy was palpable and honest and forthright. They understood well, however, that the making of a good heart involved pain.

Why otherwise do we think the Lord used circumcision as an exact description of what must take place to one’s heart? Imagine His people long, long ago when they first got word that God required physical circumcision as a vital prerequisite of being right with Him and in fellowship with Him.

And if you think heart circumcision is somehow an easy road and not that big of a deal, believe me, your heart has never been circumcised. Imagine the fact that Abraham was so in love with God and that he so honored God he circumcised himself! That’s pretty high up there on the commitment scale.

Most Christians do not have that kind of commitment. But most Christians are certainly committed to other things that bypass heart circumcision and will be extremely obstinate about it when presented with something that challenges their beliefs.

What did the Lord do when challenged about His beliefs? He simply proved who He was by not only demonstrating great love, forgiveness, and mercy toward all, but also demonstrated that He had spiritual power for good that no one else had. His credentials proved themselves.

The apostle Paul also did this. He agreed with his detractors that he was not much to behold and could not talk so well. Like the Lord Jesus, he was the opposite of what we may call a charismatic figure. He attracted no one to himself by his looks or speaking ability. If one tried to fit him for an expensive tailored suit he would still look pretty bad and probably even more so (“Hey Paul, that suit’s wearin’ you, man.”).

But Paul had a clean heart, a circumcised heart. He had love flowing out of him for others. And for his ultimate credentials, he had the power of God, something the fakers don’t have:

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. [1 Corinthians 2:1-5]

Most Christian pastors/priests/reverends are not like this. This means their hearts have never been circumcised. It means they are not filled with the Spirit of God. It means they are the Christian equivalent of the stiff-necked people God was so incensed against in the Old Testament writings. And this anger of God presented itself yet again in its fullest expression ever when the God of the Old Testament became one of us:

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” [Matthew 23:13-15]

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” [Matthew 23:23-28]

“You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’” [Matthew 23:33-39] [1]

We all know what happened forty years after these pronouncements were made. What was left of the country God founded ceased to exist forever. The same thing will happen to any person, any church congregation, or even any country that formerly believed the truth and followed the Lord Jesus if they stray into rebellious territory.

But one must always remember that BEFORE the final judgment of Jerusalem/Judea in 66-70 AD, great Life and Light invaded that place. A Great Awakening happened in that place. A tremendous spiritual outpouring took place in that place.

In the exact formerly free location where idiot stiff-necked religionists had gained control and demanded the people conform to religious slavery and a false, dead code, the Life-giving Gospel of the Lord Jesus Messiah blasted upon the scene and hundreds of thousands and perhaps more of Abraham’s descendants received that Life, long before any Gentiles ever did, and it was enough to turn Jerusalem and Judea on its ear.

But that first Great Awakening never stopped the stiff-necked from fighting it or disbelieving it, no matter how obvious was the manifestation of God’s love and power. Why?

Their religion told them it was wrong.

As a terrible historical example and what should be a very frightening possibility for us all, those people went down with the phony evil ship they created unrepentant and hard-hearted to the end.

This is the exact destiny of Unreal Christianity.

So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman. [Galatians 4:31]

A common, timeless, under-the-radar, and for the most part unspoken catch phrase often threatens emergence from larynx’s everywhere in response to a single catalyst—rising up and forming as a thin film on the edges of tongues and lips and threatening to bubble and babble forth at any given time.

It reveals clearly and unmistakably the thinking and makeup of those confronted with and easily irked and tested by Truth:

“Don’t confuse me with facts!”

The majority of those who refer to themselves as Christians of one form or another are particularly notorious for this expression and the misguided thought behind it, as are they guilty of grossly and adamantly violating the Golden Rule whenever their beliefs are revealed as false or incomplete.

This denotes two things: (1) It denotes religious pride that should not be there because religious pride cannot survive the crucifying of the flesh; and (2) It denotes a lack of love for the Truth which all real Christians readily embrace regardless of what it costs them personally.

Unreal Christians are also notorious for passing personal conviction off onto others (“You talkin’ to me!?”). Anger begins to boil slowly and can become a seething cauldron if not held in check for fear of confrontation, though sometimes ironically because they wish to obey the Golden Rule. Go figure.

It must be remembered, though, that innocent real Christians throughout the last 2000 years have had no desire to elicit such anger, and this includes the Founder Himself. He never tried to anger people on purpose, as far as I can tell, simply for the sake of making them angry. Yet, His preaching drew huge amounts of anger and vitriol, meaning of course, that the problem was without question in the ears and minds of the listeners.

Now, it is certainly true that many so-called Christians have no problem provoking others for all the wrong reasons. It is not that difficult to get people into a thick lather regarding their beliefs if that is the goal.

But that was not the Lord’s goal. Nor was it the goal of the early believers who turned the world upside down.

Their goal was to preach the Truth that sets people free from the power of sin, and break them free from the clutches of evil and the evil one, that they might possess and live in the abundant life and freedom of the Lord.

But that which became one person’s freedom became another’s reason to fight. Why? Because the Lord and His disciples preached the Truth. And the Truth often hurts. Especially when it reveals false beliefs.

Nevertheless, then and now, the majority would apparently rather stick to their false beliefs, though such may be couched in warm, traditional, family-oriented, culturally-derived, and religiously-dependent benchmarks, including, and somewhat especially, those of the Unreal Christianity variety.

Rest assured, if the Lord arrived for the first time among Christian adherents as He did among His own, it would certainly be Christian adherents who would reject Him and crucify Him. And there is an entire plethora of such “Christian” adherents willing to stand up and do the dirty deed. We know this because it is exactly what such are doing at the moment (and have been for centuries) to real Christians worldwide.

Though most Christians insist on church attendance as a mandatory practice, and while some houses of worship are generally good places with good people, churches in general contain some really bad people. Actually, some really vile people. Actually, as did some of the synagogues of the Lord’s time as told in the Gospel accounts, some churches contain demon-possessed people and some of these devil-hosters run the show.

Of course, this always refers only to other churches and never one’s own.

The point here is that if church attendance is mandatory then it is also mandatory that one had better watch one’s backside while in attendance. Many a church member has exited with long-term knife-in-back syndrome that often never heals because they (first) never prepared for such a possibility, (second) still get no sympathy from said members who always blame the victim, and (three) usually never find a way to extract said knife and often are not aware of the cause of their pain.

It is simply a very sad fact that many forms of Christianity had begun or morphed into hateful culture clubs against the full Truth of the Lord, even to the point of making the early Pharisees look like sashaying sissies in sundresses. History books are filled with such tales.

But if one is willing to peel back and lift a corner of the this world’s present false overlay and take a peek at spiritual reality, one would see it happening right now as well, and in many cases just as bad if not worse than ever.

Christian persecution is rising because it always rises as Light grows brighter and God’s people become bolder in preaching the Truth. And it is not God’s fault that a person must often become a slobbering mess of repentance to gain salvation (something prideful people abhor), in order to make a strong and clean break from sin and deception.

Let us always remember that illicit agendas are universal and that such agendas exist only at the expense of Truth, which allows one to see and understand why concealing evidence that conflicts with Truth is tantamount to the devil’s and this faux world’s survival.

Rejecting facts that challenge beliefs thus becomes a life and death issue for those who built and invested their lives on shifting-sand foundations and the bare ground of dartboard-derived locations. Though their house is destined to fall they never see such nor acknowledge such and fight anyone who thinks or says otherwise.

Pre-conceived notions and belief in false premises and data thus drive a man to protect said data, and many will stop at nothing to rewrite entire books of truth in order to alleviate it and prop up their own false version of events.

Deception is the name of the enemy’s game—that is, the enemies of the Lord Jesus and real believers—and every effort must be made to get out of it if one is in it, and resist it once one is free. Otherwise, the Truth is impossible to behold and hold and one will end up crucifying the very thing and the very One who can set them loose.

So, rather than professing and embracing in one’s heart such inane statements as, “Don’t confuse me with facts!”, let us all take a good hard look at our particular beliefs and see just how closely they line up with the Lord’s teachings. Test everything you believe against the Lord’s curriculum and commandments. An excellent starting point is the Golden Rule. He commanded us to love one another as ourselves and to treat others they way we want to be treated.

Better to resolve the issue now before it’s too late. Better to become a slobbering mess of repentance in the here and now rather than a slobbering mess of regret at the Judgment, when the eternal fate of our souls is decided upon based upon our own obedience or disobedience toward God and actions toward our fellow man during our sojourn breathing air.

After physical death, the blood of Jesus can no longer be applied and cannot cleanse. One’s eternal fate has been sealed.

“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

“For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.

“Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?

“The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.

“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.

“Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?

“Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.

“These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” [Matthew 25:31-46] [1]

The following is my response to an excellent comment made by a reader and follower of this blog, which can be found after my previous article, The Cost of Grace. I have reprinted it here, as my response has become a post:

“One of my most frequently-used counseling themes is Galatians 2:20, being crucified with Christ, in combination with Galatians 5:16-end of chapter. If we walk in the spirit, we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. It’s such a powerful passage, and we are without excuse if we really believe that walking in the Spirit will be a walk in the park.

“I’m thinking of doing Galatians next, after I finish Matthew, but I’m almost afraid to dig into it. I KNOW I’ll be convicted and humbled!”

Thanks for the comment! Right you are.

As a possible microcosm of the entire NT, Galatians is like that. As another way to express being crucified with Christ, it is the idea that we learn the right way to do things—HIS way—and then proceed to do the right thing, no matter the cost.

The Lord Jesus is unique among all teachers of all time in that He not only taught the truth and proper behavior, but demonstrated it as well regardless of cost.

One may wonder, “Why must there be such a cost?” The answer to that is complex but boils down to the idea of what may be termed a global multi-perspective mindset in which there exists multiple belief systems and methods of “right” living that are often so engrained most people will never depart from them, even after being presented with the real Gospel.

Hence, the Lord comes along teaching and demonstrating truth and it instantly reveals all the false renditions of truth for what they are. This makes people who hold traditional false viewpoints uncomfortable, convicted, and edgy, but not necessarily so much to do anything about it until a certain mob mentality forms which they can blend into and then strike back.

When such things are institutionalized and culturalized, it’s attending groupthink attacks the purveyors of truth, often small groups and mere individuals, and perceives them as malcontents and deviants. No one was and is perceived this way more than the Lord Jesus, who is Truth incarnate and also the greatest Prophet who ever lived.

Being crucified with Christ means in part that a real Christian will willingly suffer attack and persecution just as the Lord did by adopting, believing in, and standing up for His truth against all the various forms of untruth on the planet, but primarily by standing up for Him, loving Him, and being loyal to Him.

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.” [Galatians 2:20-21] [1]

If this can be said about the Law of Moses by a believer and practitioner of the Law of Moses (the apostle Paul), then it can and must certainly be said of all religions and belief systems which oppose the teachings of Jesus, and most especially false forms of Christianity.

Also, it must be noted that it is impossible to be a real Christian without receiving the actual living presence of the Lord Jesus. This is not some spacey mystical nonsense or religious quackery, as so many unreal Christians prescribe to, but the Lord Himself dwelling within one’s earthly tabernacle in actual spiritual form. Without His presence there will be an impossible row to hoe and it is sad that so many faux believers believe they can live the life commanded by God without God, but instead through religious principles and practices which make one nothing more than a bigger fake than before one’s “conversion.”

And as always, there is great comfort in numbers. But part of the testing that takes place for real believers will be spending time alone to both defend the truth and stand for it without the benefit of an emboldening surrounding group. Most want no part of such a test and therefore have no way of passing it. The Lord, Paul, and all the early believers were thought to be fools in the eyes of the world. They spent time alone with no apparent defense often betrayed and rejected.

This does and must go with the territory. If we are to truly stand with the Lord and live according to His Word, He must remove all false props except that which appears as a counter-intuitive prop—the cross.

The ministry of John the Immerser was to prepare the way for the ministry of Messiah.

Part of the preparation was preparing hearts.

Part of it was to prepare the spiritual eyes and ears of the people who possessed them, though all were most likely affected by the general blindness of the nation at that time.

“Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

“In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, ‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE; FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.’

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear.” [Matthew 13:13-16]

One may wonder why most of the people could not see and hear, and why only a few did. The above passage reveals the answer:

“The heart of this people has become dull.”

The word “dull” is translated from the Greek word pachuno, which is translated into English as “to make thick, to make fat,” and metaphorically, “to make stupid (rendering the soul dull or callous).”

The Hebrew word from the Isaiah passage regarding this sad heart adjective is shaman, and means, “to be fat, make fat, grow fat, or become fat; to show fatness.”

It is variously translated as fat, dull, gross, sluggish, and insensitive, the latter of which appears to be the modern PC definition, which segues from identifying Christians who can’t understand squat no matter how hard one may try to fix their sub-Forrest Gump spiritual IQ with words right on target but extremely offensive—to a nice word which renders such individuals as merely somewhat out of touch with God with no harm done to one’s religious or church social status (or preaching credentials).

The Lord, however, pulled no punches, as did prophets before Him. For whoever may care, it is extremely serious to claim to be a Christian without knowing or wanting God. Just as the Lord said that blind people leading blind people will result in multiple AAA calls to rescue from ditches, so is it the case when preachers with fat hearts lead people with fat hearts. The whole congregation, church building and all, falls into a proverbial ditch, lists to one side, and remains there as a spiritual testament to fat hearts out of touch with God everywhere, while attendance continues by people who make downward adjustments and learn to walk on a slant.

These people cannot see or hear, though they have eyes and ears, and cannot understand, though possessing a mind. It must be noted that their blindness and deafness is, quite strangely, willing. They have closed their eyes and ears by choice. They have also closed their minds. They have willingly chosen to become spiritual dullards with heavy eyelids, sound-deadening headphones, and minds the Lord could not squeeze truth into with the assistance of compressed air or pneumatic tools. Imagine an entire nation of people like this before John the Immerser appeared, topped off with fat-hearted religious leaders who wouldn’t know God if he became a Man and looked them in the face.

It is often the case that our brains are less than lightening fast, but we enjoy those moments when trying to grab hold of something intellectually difficult and actually succeeding, and having a happy “Aha” moment when the tumblers all come together in the correct order and we finally “get it.” Christians with fat hearts never get it, so they build mathematical and verbal formulas they do get, such 1+1=2 (I think) and c-a-t, and then proceed to build their entire religious super structure around such kindergarten principles and easy to understand concepts, thus dumbing-down future generations within that particular Christian culture if said foundational and structural concepts become fully accepted and remain.

This is exactly what the nation of Israel did. The Hebrew prophets, who could see, hear, and understand extremely well (and paid the price for it—both in getting there and staying there), and had the spiritual equivalent of world-class athlete’s hearts, lean and strong with no blockages or cholesterol problems but expressing the epitome of perfect working order with all chambers, valves, and parts pumping and opening and closing like that well-oiled machine we hear so much about with the express result of KNOWING God first and speaking forth His Word second, that all could hear from the Lord On High and thus subvert the devil’s deadening process on the understanding of sinful human beings racked with the ongoing consequence of spiritual disease.

Don’t blame the prophet for having a heart for God,

And for being strong and anointed and doing his job.

The prophets were the cure for blindness and deafness among God’s people, but when the Hebrew priests finally succeeded in killing them off, finishing the job started by the Hebrew kings, principally Solomon, Mr. Fat Heart himself, and took over—priests who had no prophetic abilities and did not know God—the cure ceased to exist for four centuries and the anti-cure did anti-work on the hearts of the people.

Therefore, the nation of Israel did not just become spiritually stupid as by some generational downward drift due to laziness or whatever, but by and through the leading and teaching of those who had no business leading and teaching and were never called by God for that service.

The Pharisees were the later evolutionary product of those Hebrew priests and the very blind men leading the blind people they created that the Lord Jesus was talking about.

Then the disciples came and said to Him, “Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?”

But He answered and said, “Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” [Matthew 15:12-14]

The same, exact, and what should be obvious parallel is playing out today, in that so many Christians over so many decades and even centuries have been led around by the blind though they neither realize nor acknowledge they are blind and refuse to admit their ears simply do not work and their hearts look like a giant sack of potatoes rolling down a hill.

The Greatest Prophet is the cure but the cure is deemed too strong, too powerful, too mean even, and completely inappropriate for our traditional Christian comfort levels and far too much to deal with when one is thoroughly ensconced in a fleshly anti-world of illusion and preoccupied with pride and money and uncrucified flesh and religious standing and social cred that would all and must all dissolve in an encounter with the King—Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession(Hebrews 3:1).

The Lord did not mince words in the Matthew 13 passage and expressed perfectly and clearly the fate of the dull at heart.

One can almost hear the prophet Nancy singing, with the end notes heading down the stairs,

These hearts are made for burning

And that’s just what they’ll do

One of these days these hearts

Are gonna burn all over (Gehenna)…

Why did John the Immerser say the following to the nation of Israel?

“You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.

Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” [Luke 3:7-9]

Fat hearts cannot produce good fruit.

Good fruit results from the process of repentance.

Repentance allows for closeness to God.

Closeness to God creates lean, athletic, and pure hearts.

Pure hearts break the power of the Delusion Illusion.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”[Matthew 5:8][1]

I wrote my last article here two months ago, on this site’s third anniversary. I am certainly thankful for all of you who read these articles and are blessed by them, but circumstances at that time caused me to wonder about the future of this blog. On prior anniversaries I had received more support.

Dwindling readership and a few other factors allowed for some serious disillusionment. From my perspective I worked very hard at receiving and writing, and writing articles with necessary content to possibly assist us all in seeing the things holding us back, recognizing the presence of the enemy fighting us, perceiving the possible lack of doing the will of God, and possibly the biggest problem—not obeying His Word as we should, which has resulted in subpar efforts in many circles and often a complete failure to achieve spiritual objectives.

Things were going well but then, though some of you remain ever faithful, things began trailing off. I also had to attend to the inevitable practical matters of life and no longer had the time or inclination to write. Thanks for those of you who prayed. Today’s effort might or might not strike any chords, but for the first time since May I’ve felt like writing again.

If there was another way to reveal those harder truths most Christians want no part of without having to engage in spiritual fights, we would certainly attend to it. But the fact remains that Christianity in general is infused with false doctrine on top of false doctrine. Most Christians know this but stop at doing anything about their own personal false doctrines. The Lord Jesus, however, will never stop. He will have a bright shining community one way or the other, devoid of all teachings not His own, thus evoking the picture of the few people who will actually become and remain part of it, rather than the false paradigm of a giant mass of non-disciples.

The reality is that the attempt to apply the real curriculum of the Lord Jesus is not at all easy and never has been. In fact, in a fallen world of sin, pain, rebellion against God and righteousness, and the resultant misery that affects us all, it is the most difficult endeavor one could ever engage in, though also the most rewarding.

It is fraught with heartache. And the worst heartache of all is that which arises from an attack from one’s friends.

The Lord Jesus suffered this more than anyone. All real Christians will suffer it as well. It is part of the deal, you know. Betrayal is a simple but terrible fact always waiting around a dark corner. It is next to impossible to defend yourself against it because it comes at the hands of those you don’t think you should defend yourself against until it is too late.

I remember many years (decades) ago during my rookie year. I had a very powerful born-again experience. I had been valiantly searching for truth for many years prior to that time and when the Lord Jesus led me to Himself within a small fellowship of loving believers, it changed my life forever. It was and remains the best thing that ever happened in my life. I wanted everyone to have what I had been given. I tried telling the world about the great joy in my life and the love of the Lord Jesus that sets us free.

The problem with this approach was that I soon found out that most people, instead of seeing the great change in my life for the better, saw me in a much different light. For whatever reason they were perfectly happy to remain in their sins, refused to consider all I was sharing, could not see and would not see the truth or have any love for it, and remained ensconced in that place far from God where I had also previously been. Only a few listened to or saw my witness.

Sounds a tad judgmental, I know. But I also know God’s patience will not last forever. He has called ALL OF US to repentance and gags at our dirty attempts at righteousness without Him. There is a giant mess that needs cleaning up, He’s the only One who can do it, He will do it in time, and the major part of the Big Clean is removing sin from His Creation. This poses a problem for human beings because sin is not just floating around out there in the ether—it is resident within human beings. And if a human being refuses to engage in the cleansing process with the Lord by first assisting Him in cleansing the sin from his or her own life and person, he or she will be part of that which goes in the great dumpster on fire.

Now, such a statement will evoke great high notes of horror from the self-righteous among us, especially those who are religiously self-righteous, and much more especially from those who are Christian religiously self-righteous. Such people apparently see God as a glowing orb of pure love from which could never come anything negative or judgmental and certainly never toward such lovely caring holy people as themselves.

This is possibly the most disgusting thing about sinful humanity—not only is there a complete lack of recognition of their own sin, there is a complete lack of believing that God would do anything about it in their particular case, because they are so good and if God would ever even think that way about them—demand their repentance that they may be clean and free, as if they must somehow not be so good—well then God can just go stick it in His big giant ear.

It is a very weird thing when people think they are just as righteous or more righteous than God.

For those who have never been enlightened or have no knowledge of the Word of God this is understandable, yet because everyone has a conscience no one is without excuse. For Christians there is especially no excuse. This is why of all people on the planet, the most vile, backbiting, and most likely to betray are fake Christians. Of course, they apparently do not know they are fake, but the fruit of the tree defines the tree.

The hard thing about real Christianity is that we are actually expected by God and even commanded by God to obey His Word. Fake Christians don’t bother with such trivialities.

At the end of my last post two lunar cycles ago I wrote the following:

Regardless of what we believe or how we see things, we must remain polite. We must remain brothers and sisters. We must be family. The Lord said the entire everything hangs on only two commandments, and we must always honor those two and obey them above all else:

One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”

And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” [Matthew 22:35-40]

If one reads that post one will see I was writing from the perspective of attempting to obey God and honor His Word, though it is a challenge for all of us. One of the problems I have always faced, however, is having to deal with other Christians who so easily get their panties in a wad over something I may be teaching.

Recently, a fellow believer reblogged one of my posts. One of this person’s readers wrote a comment disparaging my post. The author of the blog wrote a comment defending my post in a very loving and well thought-out manner. The one who had the problem then said he found nothing wrong with the content of the post, but did not like the spirit in which it was delivered…

Go figure.

“Hey Lord Jesus. We know you are from God and we like your teachings but could you please tone it down a little because after all we’re just a bunch of sissy weenies who really only want to suck on religious teets our whole life and have no taste whatsoever for adult food featuring sides of beef and giant filets of wild Alaskan salmon so please give as sugary cereal milk forever and none of these ‘hard sayings.’ Okay?”

Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? {offend: or, scandalize, or, cause you to stumble}

What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. [John 6:60-64 KJV]

Anyway, right after I posted my last article expressing my utmost in teaching what we all must do to please God and get the job done at present to help bring forth the very needed Awakening (but also on my part hoping not to offend religious sensibilities—a virtual impossibility but I do try), I get slammed by a brother who took issue with something I wrote that he did not agree with and who conveniently forgot all about the Golden Rule apparently because it did not apply to him and I was indeed worthy of a personal slam and he was self-anointed to deliver the slam. And as always, I never mention names and in this case never even responded, but that did not stop him from naming mine.

So what do I do? Well, sometimes having the kind of natural human inclinations that would want to grab him by the back of his head, slam his face onto a bar, mash his nose into a bloody mess, and thereby teach him the proper respect the way Augustus McCrae did to that arrogant little San Antonio barkeep in Lonesome Dove, I decided the best thing to do would be to discipline my natural human inclinations in an attempt to honor the Lord and not respond in kind, eat his backhanded attack, take the hit, forgive him, and do the very thing I had also just written about in my last post (which this guy read):

It is never my intention to offend. I only want to reveal truth. But unlike many others, I will not go to war against my brothers. Like many of you, I know what it’s like to get treated like dirt by those who claim to be doing the Lord’s work. I will teach very strongly when the door opens but when it appears fellowship starts taking a hit, it often indicates a time to fall back on first priorities—loving one another regardless of differences. In that light, however, the Lord never compromised the truth. Paul spent much ministry time arguing about the real revelations of Scripture and truth, but did it in love. Both got into serious trouble as a result.

In other words, those who decide to go to war against the Lord Jesus are apparently emboldened because they think He’s merely a wimpy forgiverer-lover who acts like a little girl and would never stand up for Himself. In fact, if the Lord wanted to, in His humanity, He could whip all comers in any kind of fight they may wish to bring Him. Bare-knuckle fisticuffs? He’d clean one’s clock, I’m telling you. He simply chooses not to for the sake of righteousness and a willingness to take a hit without responding in kind, since he knows He’s dealing with confused and/or ignorant no-challenge sissies.

Most “Christians” never think of the Lord in those terms. This is possibly why most “Christians” will end up in hell, because they take God lightly, they take His teachings lightly, they get convicted easily and whine to no end, rebel against Him and any of His disciples who take Him seriously, and refuse to repent if it means admitting they are wrong, even to the point of getting tossed into the fiery dumpster with these guys:

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts. [Revelation 9:20-21]

Men were scorched with fierce heat; and they blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues, and they did not repent so as to give Him glory. Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became darkened; and they gnawed their tongues because of pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores; and they did not repent of their deeds. [Revelation 16:9-11]

In these days of thousands of Christian pulpiteers preaching the devil’s message and taking congregations to hell with them while Christians at large honor their every false word, someone better do a little more than what has been required in the past. Thankfully, the Lord is never surprised by idiots and Judases and always has an ace in the hole in the form of giant spiritual swords to fiercely hack away at sin and devil’s doctrines in high Christian places. He has raised up millions of fearless warriors who comparatively no longer give a flying flip about these sorry little short lives we live, whose minds are on heaven and eternity and achieving the objective, and are willing to go toe to toe with any devil or religious idiot for the sake of obeying their King and doing His work.

For the few of you who are willing, it remains the time to storm the gates.

And for those Christians who are confused, THE DEVIL IS YOUR ENEMY, NOT YOUR BROTHER OR SISTER. DO GOD A FAVOR AND GROW A PAIR, AND FIGHT THE DEVIL IF YOU CAN SOMEHOW MANAGE THE DISCIPLESHIP.

For all you ladies out there in the Lord’s glorious service who never shrink from a fight, my personal thanks to all of you for standing by God and fighting the good fight of faith, often doing far more than your share. It is certainly a fact that Christianity in general is greatly overpopulated by women, but a remnant thereof continues to shame men who shrink from His service or refuse to get off the pew.

“Many daughters have done nobly, but you excel them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. Give her the product of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.” [Proverbs 31:29-31]

Many believe that if one does not work then one must not eat. But the Word also says that if one refuses to fight the enemy, or fights God’s people instead of the enemy, then one must not only not eat, but face judgment.

Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY.” And again, “THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated. For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence,[1]which has a great reward. [Hebrews 10:28-35] [2]

Why should God fight for and support a people who advocate for wicked forms of perversion clearly condemned in Holy Writ upon which the land’s legal system is based?

Why should God fight for and support a people who advocate for the ripping off and bankrupting of its own citizens through confiscatory tax policies while large percentages of taxpayer monies are wasted each and every year?

Why should God fight for and support a people whose voters elect the advocates of all of the above, not just once or twice, but every single time there is a national election without fail?

Why should God fight for and support a people whose voters consistently complain about the ones they elect without understanding whatsoever that the ones they elect are in office because they elect them?

Why should God fight for and support a people whose seeming majority is either asleep, willingly ignorant, apathetic, or some combination thereof regarding the dire condition of their land, and are growing in numbers and power?

Why should God fight for and support a people whose seeming majority rejects Him, His solutions, and His help to their own detriment due to their rebellion against Him and their obvious fondness of sin, disobedience, and selfishness?

Why should God fight for and support a people whose seeming majority of “believers” refuse to trust Him, refuse to teach the real Gospel, refuse to obey His commandments, refuse to surrender to His authority, and refuse to be filled with His Holy Spirit?

Why should God fight for and support a people whose seeming majority of “believers” look for solutions to their problems from anywhere and anyone but Him, who refuse to honor Him, never stand up for Him, and never defend Him and His teachings against those who continually dishonor Him?

Why should God fight for and support a people whose land is filled with religious groups that disfellowship and discredit those who attempt to reveal the truth of the Gospel that sets people free, instead of repenting for their phony religious lives and institutions that keep people spiritually dead and in bondage?

Why should God fight for and support a people whose land has become a haven for disingenuous hypocrites in love with money, this world, and prestige and are more Pharisaical than the original Pharisees?

“THE LAND OF ZEBULUN AND THE LAND OF NAPHTALI, BY THE WAY OF THE SEA, BEYOND THE JORDAN, GALILEE OF THE GENTILES—THE PEOPLE WHO WERE SITTING IN DARKNESS SAW A GREAT LIGHT, AND THOSE WHO WERE SITTING IN THE LAND AND SHADOW OF DEATH, UPON THEM A LIGHT DAWNED.”

From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” [Matthew 4:15-17]

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“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

“Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

“For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” [Matthew 5:17-20]

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And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”

Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.” [Matthew 13:10-11]

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He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” [Matthew 16:15-19]

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“Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?”

Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” [Acts 2:36-39]

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“Four days ago to this hour, I was praying in my house during the ninth hour; and behold, a man stood before me in shining garments, and he said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Therefore send to Joppa and invite Simon, who is also called Peter, to come to you; he is staying at the house of Simon the tanner by the sea.’ So I sent for you immediately, and you have been kind enough to come. Now then, we are all here present before God to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”

Opening his mouth, Peter said: “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.

“The word which He sent to the sons of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all)—you yourselves know the thing which took place throughout all Judea, starting from Galilee, after the baptism which John proclaimed.

“You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. We are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross.

“God raised Him up on the third day and granted that He become visible, not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. And He ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead. Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.”

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message. All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God.

Then Peter answered, “Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?” And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. [Acts 10:30-47]

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When they had set a day for Paul, they came to him at his lodging in large numbers; and he was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade them concerning Jesus, from both the Law of Moses and from the Prophets, from morning until evening. Some were being persuaded by the things spoken, but others would not believe…

“Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will also listen.” When he had spoken these words, the Jews departed, having a great dispute among themselves. And he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered. [Acts 28:23-24, 28-31] [1]